


Inception (novelisation)

by Anonymous



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: but i spent so much time on it so i was like whatev. i will post it, i wrote it like 3 yrs ago and rediscovered it yesterday, this is literally a straight up novelisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 16:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7395751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>so the way that i got over inception was by spending an exorbirant amount of time writing a ridiculously accurate novelisation that i now feel obligated to my younger self to post<br/>its not actually that bad. maybe a little dramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so here's the random novelisation you never thought you needed  
> i won't be continuing this apart from the bits I've posted already bc it really took a lot of time that i unfortunately do not have these days  
> the reason i wrote it originally was to practice writing sustained actual plot and shifiting perspectives so in that sense it was helpful. I never intended to publish it but looking back now I realise i put too much effort into it for it never to see the light of day (or a stranger's computer screen)  
> anyway, thanks for reading :) hope you enjoy it despite its flaws

_Water. That was the first thing he knew, the first thought he had as the blackness disintegrated and he came to. Water. Not the want or need of it- the realisation. Because he was engulfed in the foamy waves of the sea._

_Waves. Yes. That was what they were. Waves that crashed against the rocks like they were beating them down, yet petered out as they reached him. Maybe they were tired. Broken, like he was. Confused. He didn't know. He didn't care._

_Waves that lapped against his body and his-clothes, yes. He became aware that he was wearing clothes, and that therefore he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought because of that, the feel of fabric on his skin. Heavy fabric. Wet fabric._

_Another salty wave broke and flushed his nose with water. He snorted, gasping for breath, and was surprised he had the strength to do even that. Encouraged a little, he forced his heavy eyelids open._

_The surroundings slid into focus slowly. A long, white, picturesque beach as flat as- as nothing that could be natural. Sand stretched as far as he could see, fine yet compact sand so unlike anything he'd seen before. Except- except maybe he had.  He felt dizzy, disoriented, and shrugged the thought off._

_A child's shout broke through the silence._

_Far too quickly for a man as broken as himself, he snapped his head towards it. Two children- a girl, a boy- were digging in the sand. Making something- a sandcastle, maybe. He could only see their backs from where they were sitting, but he could see their golden hair. It was- familiar._

_Before he could think it through, the children turned, backs still towards him, faces unseen. As if hearing a shout, they ran away._

_For some unfathomable reason, he felt a growing dread in his stomach. He knew those children. He knew this place. He knew it, but he had forgotten.  It was so hard to think, to remember. Like trying to see through frosted glass. Like trying to see through steel, he didn't know. His head was hurting. All he wanted to do was-sleep._

_Lowering his head, he slipped back into blissful unconsciousness._

_He didn't feel the gentle prodding of the Japanese coastguard searching him, finding nothing but a gun in the waistband of his pants, and-and something else, something he wouldn't have wanted the guard to find._

_He only felt himself jolt awake as they dragged him to their master._

_***_

_The old man was weary. The years had finally caught up to him, it seemed, and he was tired. Tired, not just in body, but in spirit. He had lost the will to live, but had not the strength to die. The guards were no good to talk to, and  he had not a friend in the world. He was wizened, wrinkled, alone. A ghost of what he had been. Filled with regret at what he could have been._

_He sat at the dining table. It was long enough to fill a room, even one the size of this one. It was good quality, deserving of a man of his stature and wealth. It softly reflected the glow of the lamps hanging above it. Once he had loved this room, with its modern take on traditional Japanese design, but he no longer felt capable of those things. Of love, of hate. They were emotions too strong for a man as old and as weary as he._

_There was a wine glass filled with ruby liquid inches away from his hand. He didn't drink, not excessively. The tart liquid had lost its taste and potency to his mind long ago. It was hard for anything to cloud the mind of a man whose thoughts were already faded. And yet he had it there all the same. Maybe it was to project a look of professionalism to his guards, or maybe it was just a habit. He didn't know. Didn't really care. He had learned long ago to accept things, to live in the moment. Of course, the fact that he could no longer remember much of the past helped too._

_He barely lifted his head when a guard spoke to him, from his side. He hadn't noticed him enter, but then he rarely noticed anything. The man was telling him something, in his native Japanese. Someone had been found on the beach._

_"He was delirious. But asked for you by name."_

_When his master made no move, the man turned to a guard at the door._

_"Show him."_

_Well, the old man thought, that was interesting. No one ever came to the fortress, not even the very lost._

_"He was carrying nothing but this…" the man continued, placing a small black gun on the table. Nothing very important. The old man reached a gnarled hand over to his wine glass._

_"And this." The guard placed a small object on the table in front of him. It was triangular, but rounded, too. Startled, the old man withdrew his arm. He recognised it, the object. He-he knew it, from somewhere, from...where?_

_He half turned his head as his people dragged the intruder in. They seated him on the opposite end of the table, placing a bowl of rice in front of him. He ate like he had never seen food before._

_The old man didn't pay him any attention. He was toying with an object, the one the coastguard had found on the intruder. Playing with it. It was-it was a top, that was it, a spinning top. Where did he know it from?_

_The younger man half raised his head as he heard the older one speak._

_"Are you here to kill me?" he asked in his slow, tired voice. Husky, like he hadn't spoken in years. Which, he realised, he wasn't sure if he had._

_The younger man didn’t answer. In another world the old man might have been suspicious of the way he was staring at him- but the young man didn't seem hostile. He seemed weary, like himself. And- like he was remembering something. Something he had forgotten. But his own memory was pushing at him. Where had he seen that top?_

_The old hands moved from the gun to pick the top up. To hold it in front of the failing eyes, to consider it. He spoke again, this time, almost as if to himself._

_"I know what this is."_

_Was it a statement or a question? Even the old man didn't know, even to his own ears._

_"I've seen one before…" As if trying to convince himself. He spun the top gently on the table._

_"Many, many years ago." Was that why the memory was so clouded? Age? He didn't know how long ago it had been, but it seemed like a lifetime. Did he- did he even know how old he was? He had lost track, in his old age, of simple things like that. Of time, of years._

_The top spun gracefully on the table. He stared at it as if in a trance, willing  himself to think, to remember..._

_"It belonged to a man I met in a half-remembered dream... A man possessed of some radical notions…" he trailed off, lost in thought. Lost in the swirling confusion of them, of what he knew, and what he thought he should know. And all the while, the question nagged at him._

_What was the significance of the top? Where had he seen it?_

_He knew he knew the answer. He felt it, as though he could see it out of the corner of his eye. But every time he turned his head to look, it moved with him._

_What was it?_

_He had almost forgotten the young man he was talking to. The man was slowly raising his head, as if he too were realising the forgotten._

_Their eyes met._


	2. Chapter 2

"What is the most resilient parasite?" The blonde haired man was polished and professional as he spoke to him. He'd eaten some of his food- they were seated at the dining table in the room adjourning to the party- enough to be polite, but it was clear he was all about business now. A glass full of the finest wine Saito could find was next to his hand, the hand with which he was gesturing enthusiastically. Saito hoped he wouldn't break it. This was always the most tedious part of the job, the business pitch. This man's opening line was more interesting than most, granted, but it was going to be a dull, one sided conversation. He turned his attention back to his food.

"A bacteria? A virus?" the man continued, apparently oblivious to Saito's boredom, or at least a good actor. He put some food on his fork. "An intestinal worm?"

The fork froze halfway to his mouth. All appetite suddenly gone, he looked at it distastefully.

The other man at the table, the one with the ebony hair who was the blonde's associate, hastily intervened. "What Mr Cobb is trying to say…"

The blonde, Mr Cobb, wasn't letting anyone deter him. "An idea."

That was interesting. Saito lifted his head to look at the man.

"Resilient, highly contagious,' Cobb went on. "Once an idea has taken hold in the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate."

Saito lifted his wine glass to his lips and waited patiently for the man to continue.

"An idea that is fully formed, fully understood- that sticks. Right in there somewhere, "he said, putting a thumb against his head.

He still hadn't gotten to the point. Saito wondered what he was getting at. 'For someone like you to steal?" he said.

"Yes," said the dark haired man eagerly. He was dressed in a tasteful tuxedo, with his hair professionally slicked back, though his colleague only wore a suit. He wore the combination well, and it was clear that this was a smart man, one who was focused on his work.

 Saito had forgotten his name already.

 "In the dream state your conscious defences are lowered and it makes your thoughts vulnerable to theft," The man continued. He paused, as if for dramatic emphasis. "It's called extraction."

Why did they always assume he, as the employer, knew nothing? Or at least next to nothing? He wasn't an idiot. Obviously-or Saito would have never been successful. And he was the one who was hiring them, or, at this point, considering it.

"Mr Saito, we can train your subconscious to defend yourself from even the most skilled extractor," Cobb said, putting emphasis on the last few words.

 _Here it comes,_ Saito thought, _The big pitch._

Reluctantly, he prompted them.

"How can you do that?"

"Because I _am_ the most skilled extractor. I know how to search your mind and find your secrets. I know all the tricks. I can teach them to you, so that even when you are asleep, your defence is never down."

So much for modesty. But then, that had never really been appreciated in this line of work.

Cobb stood up, wine glass in hand. Acting at ease, like he didn't care whether he got the job or not. Gesturing wildly. Again, Saito hoped he wouldn't break anything.

"Look, if you want my help, you're going to have to be completely open with me."

As if anyone was ever open with each other in his field. Anyone still alive, at least.

"I need to know my way around your thoughts better than your wife, better than your therapist, better than anyone. If this is a dream and you have a safe full of secrets, I need to know what's in that safe."

Saito wondered if the choice of words was just a coincidence. But the safe in this room was beyond secure- he had guards working night duty, and it was hidden well. He tried to keep his expression blank.

"In order for this all to work, you need to completely let me in."

Did the man, Cobb, really believe he would swallow that? They were stupid to assume so. Smiling a little, he wiped his face on a napkin and stood up. The dark haired associate politely stood with him.

_At least one of them did their homework before coming._

He looked at them. "Enjoy your evening, gentlemen, as I consider your proposal."

Saito worked towards the double doors painted with tasteful Japanese designs. Two guards opened it for him, revealing the lavish party behind.

He'd never really been one for balls, in his personal opinion, but even they were more interesting than the two men he had left behind.

 

Cobb stared after the business man who had just excused himself from the room. Had he fallen for it? Granted, he hadn't exactly put on his best show, and Saito seemed sharper than the average mark he'd worked on. But there was still a chance. And anyway, even if he did suspect, the mission was far from failed.

His companion, Arthur, had been thinking along more pessimistic lines. He shook his head slightly as he turned to face Cobb.

"He knows." Arthur's eyes blamed Cobb. That was what came of being the leader in a job like this- the blame. The praise for getting it right, sure, but the blame if anything went wrong.

_You'd think I'd be used to it by now._

A faint rumble echoed through the room. Glass lanterns that hung suspended in the air tinkled as they knocked against each other. Cobb replaced his wine glass on the table, and the liquid trembled, ever so slightly.

Arthur was being his perky self again. He spoke in a soft, flat voice that betrayed only a hint of worry.

"What's going on up there?"

Cobb rolled up his sleeve and looked at his custom made-in-Switzerland watch. It wasn't time yet. Not just at that moment.

The second hand seemed to move with every slow, deep breath he took.

 

BOOM!

Another explosion ripped through the air as the rioters moved through the streets. Nash could see them all too clearly- with their yells and gunshots they were hard to miss. They were getting closer. If he wasn't alone, he would have been embarrassed at the way his fingers trembled slightly at that thought. But he was alone. At least, in theory.

The rioters were moving with revenge in their hearts like a fire, a fire that was to Nash real and tangible, because weren't they bringing it with them, weren't they burning down the houses and apartments that lined these streets? He'd seen things like this, of course, but on a screen, on the news. Riots in third world countries to him, back then, had seemed just a normal part of life. Just another story the reporters were making far too much out of, because didn't they happen every day? Weren't they just an integral part of life?

They weren't. Oh god, no, they weren't a small concern. It was terrifying standing there, looking out of the glass window at the chaos, at the mayhem- how had he never noticed before how fragile glass was, how thin? How easily windows could be shattered by a rock, blown apart by gunfire that would kill him too? He had never signed up to this. But then, he hadn't signed up for a holiday, either.

Speaking of what he needed to be doing, they needed to be checked on.

Cobb looked so peaceful as he sat there, on a wooden chair balanced on a bookcase, one gentle push away from a fall. A fall into a bathtub of cold water, that was. Nash hadn't had time to question Cobb's command, he wasn't the leader, he just did what he was told. That was how he had survived, all these years, even though he was only in his forties. For someone in a job like him, that was impressive. Heck, even Cobb was younger than him and everyone said he was the best at what he did.

Cobb's head was facing his chest, and he seemed years younger than he did when he was awake. Maybe it was the eyes. Everyone said the eyes were what reflected your age, and Cobb had the eyes of an ancient man. A man who had seen far too many things in his life, who had aged prematurely because of that. But it wasn't Nash's place to reflect on that. He checked Cobb was hooked up, and moved on.

 Nash followed the thin yellow tubes trailing from Cobb's wrist to another room, a bedroom. He pushed open the door and double checked that Saito was on the bed, dead to the world. The business man, too, looked as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders- although Nash doubted he'd have liked to be seen in such a vulnerable state. If he woke up…

 Maybe he did what he was told, but wherever possible Nash tried not to be anyone's enemy. And Saito didn't seem the sort to cross.

Another explosion reverberated through the room, jerking Nash sharply out of his reverie. He gave a nervous glance out of the window. Time was running out. They had to do it fast, before, before the rioters reached them.

A vein pulsed in his forehead. A nervous habit, not an angry one, he'd been that way since a child. He drew in a shaky breath.

Nash had to keep himself occupied: if he didn't, he would have panicked. He followed the tubes to a sleeping Arthur, Arthur who even in sleep seemed to maintain an air of professionalism. All the tubes ran into a silver briefcase that rested just at his feet. The PASIV device.

Arthur was asleep. That was good. All was probably going to plan. Nash just needed to calm down.

Even so, he couldn't help one last check of Cobb. On a complete impulse, he picked up his wrist and glanced at Cobb's watch.

The second hand moved once for every, what, five of his panicked breaths?

Nash really needed to get a less stressful job.

 

It was a calm, cool night, just the type Cobb loved, with little wind except a sea breeze that blew across the party. The setting was picturesque, really- a long balcony overlooking waves breaking on rocks and a full moon to add to the soft lighting lanterns gave across the pathway. The weather was neutral- not cold, but so that even in a suit he didn't feel like he was sweating. And the architecture really was beautiful in Saito's home- they were overlooking tiled  Japanese- styled rooftops at the moment. Perfect in every way, except for the faint tremors shaking the ground, and the tiles falling off the roof.

Funnily enough, not one of the guests had seemed to notice.

They needed to move fast.

Cobb took thoughtful sips of his glass as he watched the roof tiles sliding off into the ocean. He didn't seem fazed by it- not even annoyed, really, although that was never a true indication of what he was thinking underneath. It almost brought a smile to his face to see Arthur, his companion, so worried- he was usually the calmest of the two. Unlike Cobb's steady gaze, Arthur seemed to not want to look at it- but couldn't keep from shooting the roof nervous glances every few seconds.

In any normal human being, being nervous would hinder the job, maybe stop it all together if they wanted out. In Arthur, that energy translated into business.

As most other energies did whenever he was working.

_Well, it makes him good at what he does._

If there were anyone left that Cobb considered a friend, it would have been Arthur. There weren't many people who he trusted anymore- trust was a fatal flaw in his line of work. He had worked with Arthur on more jobs than with anyone else, and he had time and time again proved his usefulness.

He just wasn't being helpful by being pessimistic.

"Saito knows." Arthur turned to face Cobb, making sure he had his full attention. "He's playing with us."

"It doesn't matter."

Arthur opened his mouth to disagree, but Cobb ploughed on.

"I can get it anyway, trust me. The information is in the safe- he looked right at it when I mentioned secrets."

Arthur nodded.  Then he straightened up as he looked over Cobb's shoulder.

"What's she doing here?"

Cobb turned sharply, already guessing who Arthur was talking about. A woman in a full length ball gown- midnight black that shined in the pale moonlight- was leaning over the edge of the balcony.

_Shit._

He turned back to Arthur. As much as he trusted the man, this was not something he needed to be involved in.

"Just head back to the room. Alright? I'll take care of this."

Arthur didn't look convinced, but he let it go.

"Make sure you do. We're here to work."

Cobb gave a barely perceptible nod of the head as he turned away, walking towards the woman.

He took another, longer sip of his drink as he went to stand beside her, looking out onto the ocean with her. The glass froze halfway to his mouth as she spoke.

"If I jumped...would I survive?"

Her voice. He hadn't heard it in so long. It was lovely, lyrical, a voice that to him would have coaxed baby birds out of their nests. Heartbreaking.

Beautiful, wide, brown eyes held his as he leant over the balcony to consider the watery depths below.

"If it was a clean dive, perhaps." They both knew that wasn't the real question being asked, but what did it matter? It was a conversation starter like any other, if a little strange. But then Mal had never been ordinary, had she?

He broke the silence first. "Mal, what are you doing here?"

She was so lovely. Her short brunette hair was cleared out of her face by the breeze as she turned to face him, a half smile on her face.

"I thought you might be missing me." He might have called the smile a smirk ,if it hadn't been Mal.  But it was. And his next answer came straight from the heart.

"No, I am." Cobb let his eyes roam over the woman in front of him, and his next words came regretfully, almost as soft as a whisper. "But I can't trust you anymore."

"So what?"

 

She was admiring a painting, one that he didn't find particularly riveting, but she apparently did. It was of a man, an ugly one, by the look of it, and Cobb couldn't really understand what she saw in it.

"Looks like Arthur's taste."

_Ah._

He really needed to be more careful. But that was so easily said, and so hard to do- she was mesmerising, in every way. It pained him to look at her, but he couldn't stop. Like he was on a drug, or something, he didn’t know. And so he prepared his things while she stared at the picture and he tried to focus on his work.

"Actually, the mark is partial to post-war British painters." he explained as he went to open the giant glass window. Mal turned to look at him, an incredulous look in her eye. "Please, have a seat," he said as he gestured towards a plush red armchair.

Wordlessly, she sat down.

Keeping his face down, Cobb tied the rope around the chair leg and tried to forget she was there.

"Tell me," Mal said, "Do the children miss me?'

It wasn't working. His hand slipped and brushed her ankle, and Cobb caressed it, lightly, wistfully.

"You can’t imagine." he breathed, still looking at the floor. Cobb didn't want to see her expression.

All business again, he rose.

Still avoiding Mal's deep brown eyes, he gave the rope an experimental tug. It held. That, at least, was going to plan. Cobb gathered the rope up and brought it with him to the window ledge.

"What are you doing?" Mal asked from behind him.

"Just getting some fresh air," he replied vaguely. Cobb finally brought his head up to look her in the face. Her features were as blank as they always were, as they always had been in these situations. "Stay where you are, Mal." Like maybe he was telling a two year old.

She didn't move as he cast the rope, and himself, out of the window.

The air was in his face as he slid down the cable. It took years of practice and skill to stop his fall, stop it just at the precise height that he meant to. In front of a window, a window he knew from before led straight into the kitchen. From there he'd be able to reach it quickly, and hopefully slip out undetected.  That was one of the reasons he was alone- Arthur would have come if he'd wanted him to, but they both knew Cobb was the one who did the legwork. The one who was better at these sorts of things. At extraction. Not that Arthur was bad himself- but that wasn't his job. He was the point man, the researcher, and although he was handy with a gun it wasn't his place to be there.

It was Cobb's.

Still dressed in a sparkling suit like something out of a James Bond movie, he pulled out a glass cutter. Pushing himself back from the wall, he positioned it in place.

Then he fell.

Air gushed around him and he panicked, and it was all he could do not to give a startled cry of shock.  Even though he'd done this and worse before.

The rocks were coming towards him, faster and faster until their jagged edges were teeth and he was going to crash, was going to fail…

The rope jerked suddenly, and he came to a stop. Like it had reached the end of its tether.

Like something had stopped it from falling out.

Something like a red armchair.

Mal. He had been stupid to trust her, even for a moment. And now he was three floors below where he should have been, with no way to get back up.

Except to climb.

"Goddamnit! "he said in an angry whisper. He looked up at the kitchen window. It was annoyingly far away.

There was nothing for it. Sighing, he stretched out his arm and began to haul himself up.

 

It was dark back inside the mansion. The only light in the kitchen was blue, emanating from an appliance or something. The effect it had on the silver steel was strange, making it feel so different from the place he had explored in the day. Cobb kept his eyes alert as he withdrew a small black object from his waistcoat- a gun. He kept up his brisk walking pace as he screwed a suppressor onto it. It wouldn't do to be discovered early.

The soles of his well-polished business shoes made surprisingly little noise as he rounded a corner.  The balcony. A lone guard stood standing watch over the water below.

Face tightened in concentration, Cobb pulled the trigger.

The weapon made a small noise. Not as much as a normal gunshot would, but it was still there. Hopefully it could be put down to something being dropped by anyone who happened to hear it.  But the sound of a guard slumping to the ground would be obvious.

With quick steps Cobb ran forward, clamping a cool hand over the guard's mouth and lowered him  gently to the ground. To an onlooker he would have looked calm- acting with professional fluency. Like he had done this and worse a thousand times before.

Anyone who knew Cobb personally would know that he did.

 Another turn. Stairs this time: elegant ones that wound around and around made of expensive wood. There was a guard at the foot of them, and as Cobb paced down the last section he almost turned his head.

Almost. But not quite.

The bullet hit him in the back of the head. Two down. And Cobb was quite close now.

Saito hadn't even left anyone in front of the double doors to the dining hall they had sat at earlier. Maybe he had thought the safe's location so secret, so clever that no one could have guessed. But Saito didn't work in the job Cobb did. That's what he dealt in- secrets. Taking them from the innermost parts of the brain and giving them to others, others who paid good money for them. That's what he was doing now. And, as he had said earlier-he was the best at his job.

Arthur always seemed to want to make up entirely new identities for them each time, weave lies into believable stories. But he hadn't been working as long as Cobb had. Sometimes, it was better to lie with the truth.

Cobb scanned the tastefully decorated walls.  They were gold, with etchings of dragons, of fantasy realms and ancient times, lit now only by the few security lights left in the room. Everything looked different by night, Cobb decided. Everything had an added air of mystery, of deception that wasn't apparent in broad daylight.

There it was. The panel in front of where he was sure the safe was.

Softly, gun still at the ready, he pulled back the screen. A small, metal box stood there, just as he'd expected it to be.

Practiced fingers twisted the dial, and the door sprung open to reveal a small yellow envelope.

_Yes._

It was almost over now. Cobb pulled another envelope from his jacket, identical in every way, shoving the other one into the waistband of his pants.

The lights came on.

"Turn around!" a voice yelled.

Saito. Shit. Cobb swivelled sharply, arm outstretched with his gun pointing at the two people who now stood in the doorway. Saito, Saito and…

"The gun, Dom," a woman in a sparkling black evening dress said.

Mal.

Mal holding a gun pointing straight at him, face clearly showing just how quickly she'd shoot without a thought.

He had been stupid, so very stupid to trust her.

Cobb kept moving, gun still obstinately pointed to kill.

The double doors burst open again. Two guards dragged a third man into the room, and Cobb saw with a sinking feeling in his heart it was Arthur.

Arthur, who didn't look scared in the slightest, but was staring with cold fury at Cobb.

"Please," Mal said softly, her eyes still on Cobb's, but turning her gun hand toward Arthur.

This was bad. For anything to work, Arthur needed to be alive.

Shock still, Cobb raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, placing the gun on the end of the table and sliding it towards Mal. It stopped halfway, but Mal didn't make any move to pick it up.

"Now the envelope, Mr Cobb." Saito looked pointedly at the object in his hand.

A jolt ran through him, but he worked hard to conceal it. "Did she tell you?" he asked, "Or have you known all along?"

Slowly, carefully, he placed the envelope on the table.

Saito seemed to find his question amusing.  There was the faintest hint of a smile on his lips as he walked forwards.

"That you are here to steal from me? Or…" he paused, smirking. "That we are actually asleep?"

Cobb glanced at Arthur. His usually calm face was contorted into the most obvious _I-told-you-so_ look he could manage.

Hands still up, Cobb looked back at Saito. At least it was all in the open now.

"I want to know the name of your employer," Saito asked calmly.

Cobb raised his eyebrows slightly. They were dreaming- they all knew it. So how did Saito think he was going to get information out of him?

Mal unclicked the safety of her gun. Arthur turned his head towards her, and Cobb could plainly see the look of confusion that swept across his features.

He raised his finger slightly, an instinctual reaction to the sound. "There's no use threatening him in a dream, right, Mal?" he said, speaking to her softly, as though she were a child, or maybe like a caged animal that shouldn't have been dangerous but was. Because clearly she thought he was wrong. And that scared him, just a little.

"That depends on what you're threatening," she told him in her sweet, melodic voice. "Killing him will just wake him up. But pain…" she trailed off.

A sharp bang made Cobb flinch. Arthur's scream was one of pure agony, and he doubled over, at least as much as he could with two guards holding him up. Blood seeped from the wound Mal had made in his leg.

"Pain is in the mind," she continued, as if nothing had happened. "And judging by the décor we're in your mind, aren't we, Arthur?"

Arthur could only gasp through his gritted teeth. It was a sign of how strong he was that he could do even that- that he could hold himself together and keep himself from screaming. Mal pointed the gun at Arthur's other leg.

Cobb moved quickly. With surprising agility he lunged across the table, picking up his gun and shooting Arthur in the head.

Arthur's eyes rolled back up into his head, showing the whites. A small, perfectly round hole formed in the centre of his skull.

Cobb didn't wait to see. The ceiling was cracking dangerously, and he was up, off of the table before it crashed down where he had been.

Mal turned her soulful eyes towards him in shock.

 

His brown eyes snapped open, and before he had time to clear his mind properly, he was up. Ripping the tubes out of his wrists and scaring a startled Nash out of his bones.

"What are you doing? It's too soon!" Nash shouted, barely concealing the fear in his voice.

Spineless little worm. But then he had been the only Architect available.

"I know," Arthur told him as he wound up the wires into the silver briefcase. "The dream is collapsing."

He was walking and talking at the same time, and he went into Saito's room to find the man stirring in his sleep. He opened the case and depressed a large red button in the centre. "I'll try to keep Saito under a little longer- we're almost there."

Yellow liquid flowed from the tubes into the Mark's veins, but Arthur had the feeling it wouldn't be enough. The fortress he'd been in up until a minute ago would be falling to ruin without he, the dreamer, to keep it up, and it was only a matter of time before the debris killed them all. His one hope was the Cobb woke up before Saito did.

 

He was running, running, turning, just blindly fleeing from the guards and the debris and everything, just trying to buy himself more time. The suppressor was still screwed on but he didn't need it anymore, it wasn't necessary as he shot everything that moved and tried to get away.

Guards dropped like dead weights on the staircase, in the hallway as he ran. They weren't perfect shots- he must have caught some of them in the chest, but who cared? Things were collapsing around him, falling, sparks flying out of the glass lanterns that had hung so delicately suspended from the ceiling, chunks of walls and roof fell behind him, in front of him, he didn't know, didn't care. Statues that could have been ancient toppled and crashed to the floor as he ran past and he didn't even notice. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the job and the envelope he still carried in the waistband of his pants.

 

Saito was annoyed, really annoyed, though that might have seemed light for one whose home was falling apart. It wasn't really his, wasn't even real at all, so that was the last thing on his mind. What was on his mind was the fact that the idiot Cobb had gotten away, and the infuriating women next to him.

He hadn’t even questioned her when she had come to tell him of Cobb's deception. By then, he'd already deduced he was dreaming, and that Cobb wasn't trustworthy was obvious. But she was really beginning to irritate him.

Frantically, he scrambled for the envelope  Cobb, in his haste, had left on the table. It wasn't easy. Debris was everywhere and he had the feeling a chunk of ceiling mightn't have felt so good in the face. And after the woman's little display on pain...well, he wasn't anxious to try anything.

"He was close." the woman said. As if he didn't already know that. Her expression stayed the same- blank, unreadable, almost bored- even as the world fell apart around them.  "Very close."

Saito wasn't really listening. Frantic fingers fumbled at the envelope- the dream didn't have much time left.  It wasn't really necessary to do this- if Cobb didn't have the envelope, everything was fine. But he couldn't resist the urge to check. Just to check that the documents were secure.

 

Sparks flew as Cobb shot a guard and missed, hitting a lamp instead. Again. There was no time to pause and regret mistakes. The second round of bullets hit the man in the leg, like Arthur had been- but Arthur was awake now, gone, there was no use worrying about him. 

Stairs again. The design had seemed so brilliant when Nash had shown him before, but now the stairs were a hindrance not just to Saito, but to Cobb. He didn't slow his pace as he reached them, jumping three at a time as he wound around the staircase. Two men were following now, and although they were unarmed Cobb had no time to stop and shoot. One of them slipped as they reached the staircase, the other stumbled behind him.

Two chunks of wall suddenly gave way, crushing the men to a pulp.

Cobb had been there seconds earlier.

There was a renewed speed to his run.

 

Saito ripped the envelope open with all the force he could muster, as though his life depended on it. And it did- at least, his business life. His empire, his wealth.

Inside were- were blank pages.

That wasn't possible. He turned the file over, scattered the paper on the desk, but there was nothing there.

This wasn't the file he had put in the safe. The safe was empty.

Which meant Cobb had the real ones.

Red, hot fury coursed through his veins like the drug they had put him under. His arm whipped out as he flung the fakes away with all the force he could muster. He yelled in frustration. And then, to nobody in particular:

"Stop him!"

Beside him, the woman was laughing quietly.

 

He had enough time. Or maybe not, but the dream was collapsing and it was only a matter of time before they all jolted awake. Crouching on the stairs as the world collapsed around him he tore the envelope open, revealing two pages with writing on them, the word "CONFIDENTIAL" marked across in clear red ink.

_Almost over._

Cobb barely had time to process that thought before gunshots broke his concentration. More guards, this time with weapons. Time to run again.

There really was too much glass in the design. Cobb almost ran into it, shooting it so it shattered in a frugal attempt to delay his pursuers.

He was too close to fail. He read as he ran and shot blindly behind him with the gun he held that never seemed to run out of ammunition.

 

Saito had no one left to command. No one who would listen, at least. He was going to die, soon, and he hoped it would be painless. Quick. Who knew? He'd never died in a dream before.

He was cowering like a child, half sprawled across the magnificent dining table, when the chunk of rock smashed into his head.

 

It wasn't looking good. As Arthur adjusted the dials of the PASIV he looked up to see Saito stirring restlessly in his sleep.

"This isn't going to work. Wake him up," he said calmly to Nash, without even glancing over his shoulder.

"What?"

Arthur resisted the urge to sigh. It was times like this that he marvelled at the sheer number of idiots who worked in this field- and how they'd managed to stay alive.

He could hear something coming from the room behind him, the adjourning living room, where Nash was. Rustling. Nash was trying to shake him.

If this had been a movie, Arthur would have rolled his eyes to the heavens.

 

Another guard was crushed by debris. Cobb didn't glance back, but he heard the agonising scream that ripped itself from the man's body. Breathing heavily, alone for the moment, he pulled out the papers…

 

What was he meant to do? Nash had never woken up a dreamer before, they'd always waited for the timer, like they normally did. He shook Cobb half heartedly, but the man didn't stir. With a little more energy, Nash slapped Cobb across the cheek, turning his head to the side with the force of the blow.

 

Cobb didn't even have time to glance at the file as he was flung of his feet by an invisible force, crashing headlong into a support beam which, thankfully, held. He tried again, using his well-trained mind to memorise the words on the page even as he lay there, helpless, but that wasn't the point, he didn't have time anymore. With widening eyes he realised half of the second paragraph was blacked out by deliberate black lines.

 

"He won't wake!" Nash shouted from the other room. Arthur really was beyond all this, in a calm, controlled zone as he translated his panic into usefulness, into buying them all just another few minutes. Unlike Nash, who had been nothing but a menace this whole time.

"Give him the kick!" Arthur yelled, all patience gone.

"What?"

What was he, two? He turned around, seeing Nash's childish confusion. "Dunk hi-" his voice was cut short.

It was cut short by a man, still lying on the bed, pointing a gun at his head.

 

Nash didn't register the fact Arthur's sentence was unfinished. He just rushed to comply, pushing the chair that sat on the top of the bookcase into the waiting bathtub below.

 

Cobb raised his head. It was suddenly quiet. Very quiet. Except for- for a faint sound in the background.

 

Nash watched Cobb fall as though in slow motion…

 

A roaring sound. Like the ocean, maybe, like…water. And then he knew what it was.

_Too soon!_

 

Cobb's blonde hair splayed out as he hit the water, his suit darkening as the grey material rapidly soaked up the fluid…

 

The windows. The ones that were left, at least, gave way. Water burst in from every angle as he stood and watched it, knowing with calm acceptance what would happen.

And then it hit. All in one big torrent, water gushing at him, engulfing him and drowning him, but if he was drowned why was he still swimming, why was he still frantically gulping and swimming, swimming towards the surface, towards the bottom, he didn't know, he didn't know…

 

Cobb woke suddenly, head shaking and gasping for air. Water sloshed out of the porcelain bath from the momentum. Nash could do nothing but stare at him with a dumbfounded expression.

He still looked that way-gormless, like a child who'd done something wrong, something he'd regret- when he was elbowed in the back. Frozen, too shocked to do anything, he spluttered as Saito grabbed his hair, pulling him so that his head was securely under his arm, pointing the small black gun at him.

  _Pointed._ That was too soft a word. The metal jammed under his chin as he was wrenched around to face Arthur- Arthur, who had failed an extraction maybe never in his lifetime, Nash thought- and who had his hands raised in a gesture of surrender.

That was- that was bad, to say the least.

Except Arthur wasn't the only team member.

With a sloshing sound- the sound of water displaced, the sound of bathwater, in fact- Nash was pushed to the ground, pinned under the business man who had seconds before been a threat to his life. Cobb turned them over, pulling Saito's arms away from Nash and pinning them behind the man's back with his own. Nash scrambled from his grasp, even though Saito's arms had gone limp. Nash turned around to look at him. Checked his vital signs.

"He's out," Nash breathed in relief, almost to himself.

Outside, the rioters burned their fiery trail through the city towards them.

 

Arthur stood like a sentry at the window. It was a form of- not meditation, the rioters outside where far too close for that. He was nervous, really, they didn't have much time left, and no one else seemed to understand the gravity of their situation. The job hadn't gone as planned, and they were very close to failing. And although it hadn't been Arthur's fault, he would still suffer the consequences.

Saito had come to exactly six minutes ago- it was Arthur's job, after all, to be specific. Cobb was seated opposite him in expensive looking leather armchairs that had obviously been there a while. In fact- and Arthur had noted this before- everything in Saito's apartment had the look of something retro, antique, maybe. It was mildly surprising considering Saito's position, but then everyone liked to lie low from time to time, Arthur guessed. No one who hadn't done the background research would guess that the dilapidated building housed one of the world's energy tycoons. Arthur was just the tiniest bit proud of himself that he had managed to locate it.

"You came prepared." Cobb's words drifted over to him from where he sat with Saito. So the businessman was up to interrogating, it seemed. Arthur just hoped Cobb wouldn't take too long- they couldn't afford to be found, not now.

"Not even my head of security knows this apartment. How did you find it?" Saito asked flatly. He might have realised that they were dreaming the first time, but he clearly wasn't an expert in the field. No one who dabbled in the dream business was safe, not at all.

It might have added an extra thrill to the work, but Arthur didn't believe in that sort of thing. He just did what he did best. He wouldn't have said he _loved_ his job exactly- love was a strong word. But he had no intention of giving it up.

"It's very difficult for a man of your position to keep a love nest like this secret- particularly," Cobb said, looking down at the gun in his hand, "When there's a married woman involved."

"She would never."

"And yet, here we are. With a dilemma."

A car burst into flames as it was set alight, the explosion resounding through the air. Another's windows were smashed as a structure- was it a statue? Debris from a building? - fell on top of it. And Cobb stayed calm, as if oblivious to the whole thing. If Arthur hadn't worked with him for so long, he'd have been annoyed.

"They're getting closer," he said, gaze still fixated on the war outside.

"You got what you came for." Saito spoke softly.

"No, that's not true, is it? You left out a key piece of information. You held something back because you knew what we were up to." Arthur could almost see Cobb's determined expression challenging Saito to look him in the eye. "Question is, why did you let us in at all?"

"An audition."

Arthur snapped his head around. What? He looked at Cobb, whose face was carefully blank.

"An audition for what?"

"Doesn't matter. You fail." He was good, this man, Arthur conceded. Already it seemed as though he had turned the conversation to his advantage. Weak and unarmed as he was. Cobb seemed equally put out.

"We extracted every bit of information you had in there."

"But your deception was obvious." It was all Arthur could do not to glare at his business partner. _And whose fault was that, exactly?_

His flawless features furrowed in confusion as he looked from Cobb to Saito. This was definitely not what they had expected.

He barely registered Nash's frantic glances out of the window as another car was blown apart.

 

The man's head knocked against the window as the train rounded a corner. There were two of them with the same black hair- the neat one who was wearing a suit, and the other, dishevelled looking one who Todashi had to watch. A blonde man, obviously the leader, was sitting opposite them next to the business man. All so peaceful looking in sleep, but then looks could be deceiving. Todashi just had to do as they said and he'd be paid for it, paid well, they said, in American money.

And even if it wasn't legal, now was as good a time as ever to start saving, wasn't it?

He glanced at his watch. Almost time. The second hand moved in perfect sync with the numbers on the red display.

Another bullet train roared past, and Todashi dug in his backpack for an MP3 player. Old fashioned, maybe, but it worked fine and that sort of technology wasn't the priority in their job, he suspected. With soft movements so as not to wake them, he slid the headphones over the dishevelled man's ears. Eyes trained on the red countdown in the middle of the briefcase, he waited. Waited with his finger on the play button for it to hit 25 seconds exactly.

28,27,26…

He could hear foreign music playing faintly through the headphones.

_Non, rien de rien..._

No regrets.

Todashi sure hoped not.

 

Arthur raised his head slowly, expression darkening as he heard the familiar opening bars of music flood the room. Distorted, sure, unrecognisable perhaps from Edith Piaf's greatest hit. But not for him. Not for someone who'd been trained to hear its tune. Someone who'd been relying on it for years.

His eyes met Nash's.

"So," Saito continued, oblivious to the sudden change in atmosphere. "Leave me and go."

Cobb had obviously heard it too, for there was now a level of urgency to his usual placid tone.

"You don't seem to understand, Mr Saito- the corporation that hired us? They won't accept failure." He leant forward in his chair a little, trying to get the point across. "We won't last two days."

Arthur's attention was drawn back to the window, and to his horror he saw people looking back up at him. A group of protestors had broken of from the rest and were heading towards their building. His head snapped around.

"Cobb." he said, with just a note of panic to his tone. He gestured for him to speed it up a little.

Arthur could hear shouts coming up from the stairs.

Maybe more than a little.

 

 

Taking his cue from Arthur, Cobb stood up. "Looks like I'm going to have to do this a little more simply…"He grabbed the Japanese man from the back of his tailored suit, throwing him onto the floor with all the force he could muster.

"Tell us what you know!" he yelled, spitting the words into the man's face. He flipped him onto his back. "Tell us what you know now!"

The man seemed strangely unfazed by this turn of events. He lay, face down in the carpet, just stroking it with his bare hands. And- and chuckling, quietly, peacefully to himself. Instantly, Cobb knew something was wrong.

"I've always hated this carpet," he said.

Cobb locked eyes with Nash. The Architect shook his head slightly, as though he didn't understand what was going on.

_Non, je ne regrette rien._

The music was ghostly, providing an eerie backdrop to their words. Slow. Stretched out. Like it had been mixed by an amateur.

"It's stained and frayed in such distinctive ways.."

Even Arthur had stopped staring out the window, to watch him. Something was wrong.

_Non…._

"But very definitely made of wool." Saito sighed, and then smiled as wide as his mouth possibly could. "Right now, I'm lying on polyester."

_Shit._

The Architect's eyes widened as he felt the gaze of Cobb and Arthur judging him, mentally ripping him apart with their eyes.

_Shit._

"Which means…"Saito propped himself up on one elbow, turning to look at him, at Cobb, who up until a minute ago had been in control of everything. "I'm not lying on my carpet in my apartment. You have lived up to your reputation, Mr Cobb. I'm still dreaming."

 

_Je ne regrette rien._

The red timer flashed zero, and a beeping noise filled the compartment. Todashi raised his eyes to see the second man, the one in the suit with the black hair, opening his eyes.  He didn't look happy. Todashi leaned back a bit as the man methodically detached himself from the briefcase.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

"Not good," the man replied, as he put a hand on Todashi's back and ushered him to the side of the cabin.

 

A banging had started at the door. A tremendous pounding of a thousand hands trying to reach this one room.

Cobb glanced to the window to find Arthur already gone. Disappeared, as though into thin air. If Arthur was gone already…

But it was obvious that the job would not be completed now. Saito seemed to realise this, too, as he rose from the floor.

"Dream within a dream, huh?" he said, considering him with his head tilted to the side. "I'm impressed."

Cobb didn't reply. He just looked at him.

"But in my dream," Saito continued, "We play by my rules."

A squeak from Nash reminded Cobb he was not the only on in the room. Nash. Nash who had ruined it all for them, who had given them away.

"Ah, yes, but you see Mr Saito…"

"We're not in your dream." Cobb said frankly.

 

Nash watched Saito spin at Cobb's words, to confront him. But right on schedule, Cobb was gone.

Vanished. As though into thin air.

Nash smiled at the business man's confusion, his slow realisation as he turned to look at him.

"We're in mine." he said.

The door gave way and the crowd of rioters consumed him.

 

The timers hit zero almost in sync. Arthur lifted his head to see Cobb open his eyes, put his finger on the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. To his right he could see Nash stirring. Arthur rounded on him as soon as he opened his eyes.

"Asshole!  How could you mess up the carpet?"

"It wasn't my fault," Nash said, immediately on his defence.

Like hell it wasn't.  It was Nash's responsibility, his job. Without people doing their jobs the whole team would collapse. Arthur was fuming as he packed up the PASIV device with practiced fingers.

"You're the Architect!"  His voice nearly cracked with rage. Jesus Christ, the guy really had no idea, did he? _Saito_ had worked things out faster and he was their _mark!_

"I didn't know he was going to rub his damn cheek on it!"

And that was what separated them, Arthur decided. Attention to detail. In his line of work- in dreaming, full stop- you had to pay attention to everything. _Everything,_ even the stains on the goddamned walls, let alone the material of the carpet. Of the entire thing.

"That's enough." Cobb's voice was placid, peacemaking. He was taking Saito's pulse.

Arthur turned to him.

"And you," he said, "What the hell was all that?"

"I had it under control," Cobb shot back.

"I'd hate to see it out of control."

"We- we don't have time for this," Cobb stuttered, withdrawing his hand and ripping the IV tubes from Saito's wrists. He stood up. "I'm getting off at Kyoto."

"He's not going to check every compartment," Arthur said as he slammed the lid of the PASIV and watched Cobb get his own bag off the overhead rack. Nash sat there, useless as always, looking lost.

"I don't like trains." It seemed a lame excuse to Arthur, but he let it slide. He had other, more pressing concerns on his hands.

"Listen," he heard Cobb say to that kid, Todashi he was called or something. "Every man for himself."

A thick wad of cash changed hands, and Cobb left, slamming the compartment door behind him.

Arthur shot another angry glance at Nash before he followed suit.

 

Saito opened his eyes slowly. It took him a while to get his bearings, to remember where he was. A- a train, it looked like, he was on a train, sitting in a compartment opposite a boy reading a thick comic.

He looked down at his wrist. There were faint, almost imperceptible mark near his veins.

They had done a good job. But he still remembered.

Saito looked out of the window and smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

The hotel room really did have a great view. It was high rise- as most things in Tokyo were- and you could see the outline of the Tokyo tower if you looked hard enough. The pitch black, starless sky provided a elegant backdrop to the lights of the city. But Cobb's attention was not focused on the quality of the room, or even the magnificence of the country he was in. Long ago visiting foreign countries had lost its novelty to him. It was just another boring part of life. Just another routine he had lost himself in, although the routines in his life were anything but ordinary. Anything but the norm. No. Cobb sat on the couch that would have been comfortable if he had paid attention to it, and stared at the things on the coffee table.

Two things that to someone ordinary might have seemed starkly different. Unrelated, in every respect. One might have been frightening, threatening, to say the least. The other was- well, a toy, really. Just a kid's toy.

A neutral coloured spinning top and a harsh black gun.

To him, they were no more out of place in his life than- than his watch might be. They were the essence of what he did. The core.

He picked up the top in his fingers. Turned it, over and over, as though considering an artefact. Staring with the intensity of the sun, maybe, staring as though he'd never seen it before. He had, of course. It was his lifeline.

With deft fingers he spun the top on the coffee table.

His gaze never wavered as it spun. Without looking, he reached for the gun at its side. Picked it up, held it up beside his ear. The safety changed with a resounding _click_ that he barely noticed. His attention was consumed by the toy.

Round and around and around it went. It teetered a little, as though as it were about to fall.

It tilted to its side. Resting on the desk.

Cobb let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

He clicked the safety of the gun back on and laid it carefully on the table, as though it had only just occurred to him it had the potential to kill.

The phone rang the moment he dropped it.

Cobb's eyes flickered up. Cobol didn't have this number, did they? That was ridiculous. This was a hotel, and Arthur would have made sure they were secure. Warily, he picked up the receiver.

"Ye-Hello?" Cobb said into the mouthpiece.

"Hi Daddy!" Came the rushed reply of a little girl.

"Hi, Dad," a little boy said.

Cobb's heart jumped. He breathed out. They hadn't called in ages- their grandmother had been getting stricter and stricter lately.

"Hey guys, hey. How are you, how are you doing, huh?" The words came in a rush. He hadn't spoken to them in ages, not for- for forever, it seemed. Cobb stood up, walking over to the wall length window that he hadn't given a second glance before. It was as if, if he looked hard enough, he might be able to see them, their faces, all the way on the other side of the world.

"Good!" Philippa sounded confident, so very much his beautiful baby girl. She was seven, though, now, not at all the little girl he'd left at home.

"Ok, I guess." Another little voice lagged a little behind his big sister's.

"Ok? Who's just ok? Is that you James?" He had to be, what, five, now? Philippa's age when he had left. He missed them. He missed them so much it _hurt…_

"Yeah. When are you coming home, Dad?"

Cobb couldn't speak. Couldn't say anything, because what could he say to something like that? To his son, to his daughter who were too young to understand?

"I can't, sweetheart, I can't. It's not for a while, remember?" That, at least, was true.

"Why?"

He couldn't tell them. It would shatter them. Shatter their perception of him. He couldn't. So he stuck with the same lie he'd always told, to protect them, the same twisting of the truth.

"I- I told you," he said, his voice faltering just a little. "I'm away because I'm working. Alright?"

"Grandma says you're never coming back." Philippa again. She didn't sound worried, just like she was stating a fact. A fact that maybe she didn't want to believe but was ready to accept. Maybe she already had.

Maybe Cobb already...but no. He hadn't given up. Not yet. There had to be-some, some way to fix it all…

His heart sank. Would they remember him at all? Did they already know, had they already been told one side of the story?

"Philippa, is that you? Put- put Grandma on the phone for me, will you?"

"She's shaking her head."

Cobb breathed in, a shaky breath that drew from the bottom of his lungs. "Let's just hope she's wrong about that."

"Daddy?" James's voice was fragile, smaller than it was before.

"Yeah, James?"

"Is Mummy with you?"

Cobb felt the words like a punch in the gut. He sat down, covering his face with his hands. As though hiding from the pain.

"James, we talked about this. Mummy's not here anymore."

"Where?"

What must it be like, to be too young to understand? Sadness rolled over him, like a wave, a rip that was dragging him out to sea. Engulfing him, forcing him to struggle for air.

"Ok, kids, say bye-bye." That was another voice, their grandmother, ushering them off the phone. He didn't have time- he hadn't said anything, he needed to-

"Listen, I'm going to send some presents with Grandpa, alright?" The words came out in a rush. "And-and you be good, you be-"

The phone went dead in his ear.

Cobb closed his eyes. Put down the receiver. Lent back in the chair to let the pain run its course.

 

A knock at the door broke him out of his reverie. Cautiously, Cobb picked up his gun and went over. The door swung open to reveal a calm- albeit irritated- Arthur.

"Our ride's on the roof."

Cobb sighed, turning around to fumble for his belongings. He hadn't brought much- he never did, not any more. At first it had merely been a convenience: the less he packed, the easier it was to move at short notice. Cobb guessed that was still true, but then the lines had blurred. Now, the duffel bag contained all he had, all that he had left to care about. All that he needed.

"Hey, are you okay?"

The question was so out of the blue Cobb stopped what he was doing and straightened up. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine, why?"

That answer clearly wasn't satisfactory. Arthur persisted. "Down in the dream…Mal showing up…" He left the sentence unfinished, as though waiting for an answer.

"Look, I'm sorry about your leg. It won't happen again." They both knew Cobb was avoiding the question.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?"

"One apology's all you're getting, alright, Arthur?"

Arthur just looked at him.

"Where's Nash?" Cobb said, hastily changing the subject.

"Hasn't shown. Wanna wait?" It was clear by his tone exactly what Arthur thought of him.

Cobb shook his head. "We were supposed to deliver Saito's expansion plans to Cobol engineering two hours ago. By now, they know we failed." He put a hand on his associate's back, ushering him towards the door. "This time we disappear."

It was only two short flights of stairs to the roof where the helicopter was waiting.

"Where are you gonna go?" Arthur asked. Jesus, what was this, twenty questions? Of all the times for Arthur to be talkative.

"Buenos Aires," Cobb replied stiffly, as they rounded the last corner. "I can lie low there, maybe sniff out a job when things quiet down. You?"

"Stateside."

Of course. He'd almost forgotten Arthur wasn't in the same position as him. "Send my regards."

Arthur gave him a look. Sympathetic, maybe, just a tiny bit of pity flashed in his eyes.

The helicopter was in the middle of a painted green patch on the grey concrete of the roof. Up here the view would have been spectacular if it wasn't for the thin veil of smog that hung over the city in the predawn light.  As it was, Cobb had to squint because of the smoke irritating his eyes. Arthur didn't look bothered. But then, that was what made Arthur, Arthur. His ability to cope. And cope without complaining.

A Japanese man slid open the door for them as they approached. Cobb quickened his pace- they were almost out. Once they left Japan it was unlikely that Saito would have any chance of finding them- and, well, he had to hope that Cobol would be put off their scent. In retrospect, it really had been stupid taking a job up with them. They were renowned for being one of the least trustworthy in the business- and considering Cobb's line of work, that was worrying. It had seemed such a simple solution at the time; he'd been in desperate need of a job and it was always better to have the big corporate companies on his side. He'd reckoned that they might have employed him again later, or maybe even in the long run. Cobb just hadn't reckoned on Saito knowing as much as he did about extraction.

Yes, Arthur had brought it up, yes, they'd discussed that he had a history, but it took years of practice to know you were in a dream without being conscious you were going under. Heck, even Cobb sometimes had an issue-with the lines between reality and the dreamscape.

It was dangerous.

But that was beside the point. Saito was definitely the most aware mark he'd had in a long time, and he'd done extractions against people actually in the business. But he still would have fallen for it, in the second level. If only Nash hadn't screwed it up.

Cobb was trying his hardest not to be angry at the man. It wasn't as if Nash had deliberately sabotaged their mission- he had things at stake, too. No one wanted Cobol on their tail. But he had seemed so promising- hell, he'd gotten everything else right- the carpet stains, the wood, even the _pillow gun,_ although he should have warned them about that. And he'd turned out to be just like the rest of the idiot Architects they had.

It wasn't the first time Cobb had been tempted to build the goddamned thing himself. But as always, he didn't act on the impulse. He knew what happened if he did.

Shoving the bag further up his shoulder, he walked.

And stopped.

Abruptly.

There were two men seated in the seats meant for Cobb and Arthur. One Japanese. One- one American.

Mr Saito let out a sigh. "He sold you out," he told them flatly, reclining in his chair. "Thought to come to me and bargain for his life."

Nash had been beaten, obviously. His face was bloody and bruised and not one of them, not Saito or the man at the helicopter door or any one of his body guards- had a scratch on them. Nash seemed smaller than he was, shrinking into the seat as though he wished it would swallow him up. But not out of shame. Oh, no. Not out of shame.

Out of fear. Instinct. Self preservation. He'd chosen himself over the team.

Beside him, Arthur was tense and rigid from head to toe. Disgust, loathing, was etched in his expression.  But beneath the façade Cobb could see the fear in his colleague's eyes. His eyebrows were furrowed together, and he looked almost as though he could have cried.

The idea pulled him up short. Arthur didn't cry.

"So," Saito continued, apparently oblivious to their reactions, "I offer you the satisfaction."

For a moment Cobb didn't understand what he was saying. Then the guard handed him a small, black gun.

He shook his head. Cobb might not have a problem with shooting non-existent guards in the dream state, but he didn't kill in reality. No. He knew what that could do to someone.

"That's not the way I deal with things," he said.

Saito raised a delicate eyebrow, then raised a hand to tap on the window beside him. Thrice. Two guards came out, grabbing Nash under the arms and roughly pulling him with them.

Saito gestured for them to board. Cobb glanced at Arthur,  but the same resignation was mirrored in his dark features. The same acceptance that they could do nothing but follow him.

 

 

The rotors of the helicopter roared as they ascended into the air. Arthur's gaze remained fixed on Nash, who was now being hauled away to god knew where. Cobb seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"What will you do with him?" he sounded resigned, calm, and yet his eyebrows where furrowed together in some expression Arthur couldn't quite place. It was rare that his colleague ever let his emotions get the better of him, at least during a job. Until- until last time. The frustration from the memory was still raw. Had Arthur really been the only person doing their job properly?

First Cobb, then Nash. And all the while Arthur had had to be the one holding it together, keeping it going. At least he knew Cobb wouldn't betray him though- they'd been business partners for far too long. In another world, another setting, they might even be friends. At some point they'd stopped grudgingly putting up with each other and started helping one another out. Or maybe it was just a mutual need for survival. But if there was one thing Arthur was sure of, it was that you never sold out your team. Not ever, not even if you hated their very guts. Code of honour amongst thieves, maybe, and it was kind of odd considering their line of work. But you just didn't. You just didn't prioritise yourself. And Nash had found that out, he supposed, to his cost.

"Nothing," Saito, their would-have-been-mark, answered. "But I can't speak for Cobol engineering."

_Fuck._

Arthur shot a frantic glance at Cobb, who had closed his eyes, as though he had a headache. This man, this Saito, was so much more dangerous than they had thought.

The majority of the ride was spent in silence. It wasn't comfortable- each of the men stared resolutely out of the window. In another scenario the sunrise on the Japanese horizon would have been beautiful, breathtaking, in fact, but Arthur couldn’t appreciate it. He was afraid, frankly, scared of what the business man would do to him, what Cobol would do to him and Cobb, what they were probably already doing to Nash. That scenario was looking more and more likely by the second.

Dawn broke and the skyline was now grey, giving a strange effect to the many matching buildings below.

Cobb was starting to get tired of the cat-and-mouse game, Arthur could see. It wasn't that he hadn't played it- it was just that previously, it has always been on his terms. At the very least they'd had the option of not continuing.

He timed it in his head how long he lasted from the first sign of agitation. Arthur bet five minutes.

Four minutes and ninety-one seconds later, Cobb broke the strained silence.

Oh, well. Maybe a bit optimistic, then.

"What do you want from us?"

Saito paused for a moment, turning his full attention towards the man. "Inception," he said, simply.

_What?_

For a moment Arthur thought he had misheard. The look of surprise on Cobb's face, however, said otherwise.

He rounded his gaze on the businessman. What was he playing at?

"Is it possible?" he continued.

"Of course not." Arthur's answer shot out of his mouth before Cobb could react.

"If you can steal an idea from someone's mind, why can't you plant one there instead?" Saito reasoned.

The logic was so off Arthur was taken aback for a second. But just a second. "Ok, here's me planting an idea in your mind. I say to you: Don't think about elephants. What are you thinking about?"

Saito paused for a moment. "Elephants," he said.

"Right, but it's not _your idea_. You know _I_ gave it to you. The subject's mind can always trace the genesis of an idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake."

"That's not true." A soft voice at his side. Arthur whirled around to face Cobb. What was he doing? Cobb knew it wasn't possible, he knew for certain, like him, didn’t he? No one had ever done it, not in the history of shared dreaming, not ever.

"Can you do it?" Saito. All business.

"Are you offering me a choice?' Came the acidic reply. "Because I can find my own way to square things with Cobol."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. Cobol engineering wasn't exactly happy with them at the moment- and they certainly didn’t look they were going to calm down anytime soon. What was Cobb saying?

Although, he thought, maybe it was best to work themselves out of the current situation at the moment.

"Then you do have a choice."

It was too good to be true. Was he actually going to let them go?

"I choose to leave, sir."

They sat in stony silence as they approached what seemed a private airport of sorts.  There was just one plane on the landing strip: a white one, blinding in the sunlight, luxury, obviously a personal jet. It was with some surprise that Arthur realised that it was meant for _them-_ the helicopter was landing beside it. Was the man actually trying to guilt trip them into taking the job?

"Tell the crew where you want to go," Saito said as the helicopter came to a halt.  Arthur gave a polite nod in his direction, then grabbed his bags to climb over the seat and out. Out, out, out, away, he'd never been so glad in his life that a helicopter ride was over. He'd  almost convinced himself that it was over, that maybe they were going to get away with it, when a voice shouted from behind his shoulder.

"Hey, Mr Cobb!"

The two men ploughed on, ignoring him.

"How would you like to go  home… to America, to your children?"

Arthur could almost feel the air on his back as Cobb whirled around to face the man.

_Well, that got a reaction_.

"You can't fix that!" Cobb shouted over the roar of the helicopter blades. "No one can!"

"Just like inception."

Arthur was getting tired of this. He half turned to go, when he realised Cobb wasn't following him. His attention remained fixed on the man.

"Cobb, come on," he said.

Cobb ignored him.

_Oh, for the love of God…_

Didn't Cobb realise the danger they were in? They'd already seen how powerful Saito was, and of course there was Cobol, too. So why weren't they on the goddamned plane already?

Cobb was walking, actually _walking,_ back towards the helicopter.

"How complex is the idea?" he asked.

"Simple enough."

"No idea is simple when you need to plant it in someone else's mind."

Saito sighed. "My main competitor is an old man in poor health. His son will soon inherit control of the corporation." Saito paused, the hint of a smile curling his lips. "I need him to decide to break up his father's empire."

Right. Yeah. What was it, simple enough?

"Cobb, we should walk away from this," Arthur cautioned. They were already in over their heads.

"Hold on," he said. Cobb turned to Saito again. "If I were to do this- if I even could do it, I'd need a _guarantee_ … how do I know you can deliver?"

Saito's smile just widened. "You don't."

Precisely. And that was exactly what Arthur was _saying_...

"But I can," Saito continued. "So. Do you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone?"

He made the words sound almost haunting, an effect amplified by his exotic accent.

Cobb seemed to be considering it. Then he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Saito seemed to accept this. "Assemble your team, Mr Cobb," he said, with a wry grin. "And this time- choose your people more wisely."

 Arthur sighed. There really was nothing he could do about it. He was just the point man- Cobb was the leader, the extractor, the one who made all the decisions. The only thing he could hope was that they didn't screw up like last time.

 

The jet really was at the height of luxury. Food, service- there were even double beds accessible through a door. It was nice to be here and know that it was actually, honest-to-god real, that the salad he was toying with actually existed, that the view he looked out on was actually the clouds in the sky.

Cobb sat across from him, staring moodily at a wine glass that he'd really only accepted out of politeness. Arthur considered him as he picked at his food.

"I know how much you want to go home."

Cobb didn't say anything, but it was clear from his facial expression exactly what he thought of that.

Arthur ignored it. "But this can't be done," he finished through a mouthful of salad.

"Yes it can."

Was it just him, or was Cobb being purposely vague? He wasn't usually like this. There weren't many secrets you could keep in their line of work, especially considering how often they'd worked together.

"You just have to go deep enough," Cobb continued.

Because that had worked so well in the past, hadn't it? Arthur was sceptical.

"You don't know that."

Cobb took a deep breath, and he seemed to choose his next words carefully. "I've done it before."

Arthur stopped eating. Since when had that happened? He hadn't heard about it, Cobb had never said anything about it before.

"Who'd you do it to?"

Cobb looked out the window. It was clear he wasn't going to be answering anything else on the subject.

Well, fair enough. Arthur guessed he had to allow him some privacy.

"Why are we going to Paris?"

Cobb reached over, pulling the blind of the window further up. "We're going to need a new architect."


	4. Chapter 4

The Parisian skyline was so unique, Cobb reflected. Like someone had tried to design a city, but couldn’t work out what century they wanted to set it in. Almost as if there was a line the buildings went from relatively short, antique flats or quaint shops to high rise office buildings, marking the business district of the city. It really was the home of architecture. Ever since he'd been a student there he'd admired the look of the city, the feel, from relatively small things like the wide promenades to the way the buildings almost looked like a web- with the _Arc de Triomphe_ and the Eiffel tower the spiders.  He held this image in his head as he made his way to the school.

It had changed since he left it, but only in small ways that would be invisible to anyone who didn't know it well. Who hadn't walked these halls countless times like Cobb had. This was were it had all begun. Until Cobb had come here, he'd just been like every other architecture student, if a little advanced. So much had happened since then. It made him nostalgic.

A left, a right, and yes, there was his favourite lecture room.  Through a single clear window amongst the panes of translucent glass he could make out the figure bent over a desk.

_Just like he used to._

The professor was so engrossed in his work he didn't even look up as Cobb opened the door. It made Cobb sad, just a little. Sad that the old man could rely on his safety and didn't have to be on his guard the way Cobb did. It was strange to think that he'd been like that once- so sure of his future, his road in life. And just look at how that had turned out.

"You never did like your office, did you?"

The old man's head snapped up to see Cobb seated, as he had all those years ago, on a wooden bench. A smile broke across his face.

"No space to think in that broom cupboard." He considered Cobb for a moment. "Is it safe for you to be here?"

Was there really any point in asking that question anymore? Miles knew how dangerous extraction was, knew how Cobb was practically hunted across the globe because of it. And not necessarily in a good way.

Sighing, Cobb stood up, walking down the stairs to Miles's desk. It was in the centre of the lecture hall, directly under the wall length blackboard covered in the professor's spidery handwriting. "Extradition between France and the United States is a bureaucratic nightmare."

'I think they might find a way to make it work, in your case."

Cobb had to suppress a grin.

  _Same old Miles._

Same old gallows humour.

"Look, I uh- I brought these for you to give to the kids when you have a chance," Cobb said, placing a rather large shopping bag on the desk.

"It'll take more than the occasional stuffed animal to convince those children they still have a father."

Just once, Cobb hated Miles's blunt way of speaking. That way he had of simply telling you what he thought of you, or of something. Didn't he realise how helpless Cobb was in that respect? How, wanted as he was, he couldn't just fix it? There was nothing he could do.

"I'm just doing what I know, I'm doing what you taught me," he shot back.

"I never taught you to be a thief." There it was. An obvious fact that he had tried so hard to ignore.

"No, you taught me to navigate people's minds, but after what happened…" Cobb looked Miles right in the eye. "There weren't a whole lot of legitimate ways for me to use that skill."

He was trying to ignore the emotions raging within him, bubbles of air trying to force their way to the surface. But Miles didn't miss it. He leant back in his chair, the better to take Cobb in.

"What are you doing here, Dom?"

Why was it that it was so unusual to hear his first name so casually thrown around? No one called him that anymore, not since-well, since it had happened.

Cobb sighed before speaking. Miles wasn't going to like it. "I think I found a way home. It's a job for some very, very powerful people- people who I believe can fix my charges permanently. But I need your help."

Miles seemed to realise something. "You're here to corrupt one of my brightest and best."

"You know what I'm offering. You have to let them decide for themselves."

"Money."

"Not just money. You remember. It's the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities- things that never existed, things that couldn't exist in the real world."

"So you-you want me to let someone else follow you into your fantasy?" Miles seemed sad, disappointed even, but he had to remember the thrill of it all, hadn't he? Miles was the one who had showed Dom the ropes, taught him how to build, how to manipulate, how to become the best at what he was. He had to remember the thrill of seeing a building rise from the ground knowing it was there simply because you’d willed it to be, watching designs that existed only as a sketch in your notebook, or a thought in your head, stand in front of you just beckoning to be explored. He had to remember that.

Maybe he was just worried. "They don’t actually come into the dream, they just-just design the levels and teach them to the dreamers. That's all."

"Design it yourself."

There was a beat of stony silence. Cobb swallowed. Then:

"Mal won't let me."

He could see the shock flit across the professor's face, see his eyes soften in pity. The eyes that were warm, brown, and so heartbreakingly similar to hers. Then they hardened. Miles leaned forwards in his chair.

"Come back to reality, Dom," he said, in a voice so quiet it was barely a whisper. "Please."

He didn’t understand. Miles didn't understand how desperate he was, that was it. He didn't know how many nights of sleep he'd lost over his children, how often he'd thought of them, how sometimes the thought of them was the only thing that kept him going.

"Reality?" he asked, matching the professor's whisper, although his was dripping with scorn. "Those kids- your _grandchildren,_ they're waiting for their father to come back home. That's their reality. And this job- this _last job,_ that's how I get there. I would not be standing here if I knew any other way." Cobb straightened up, composed himself. It was irrational to be angry with Miles: it wasn't his fault. "I need an Architect who's as good as I was."

Miles looked as though he was teetering on the edge of a decision. He let out a long, drawn out breath. He half-smiled at Cobb. "I've got somebody better."

 

"Ariadne?"

She heard Professor Miles call out her name as she rushed down the steps, midway between classes. What could he want? Ariadne scurried over.

"I'd like you to meet Mr Cobb," her teacher said, gesturing towards a man she hadn't noticed previously standing beside him. He looked like he was in his mid 30s- groomed and professional, but he certainly wasn't like any of the other introductions she'd gotten before. They'd all been wearing immaculate suits and positively reeking of arrogance- but the man, this Cobb, seemed normal enough.

"Pleased to meet you," she said, slightly bemused, as she offered out her hand. His face twisted into what might have been described as a smile if his eyes weren't so- so sad.

Strange.

"If you have a few moments, Mr Cobb has a job offer he'd like to discuss with you."

Ah. So that was what it was.

"Like a work placement?" Ariadne asked.

She almost missed the glance Cobb shot Professor Miles out of the corner of hiseye. Almost.

"Not exactly," Cobb said.

 

They were outside, in a place Ariadne hadn't actually known existed despite this being her second year at school. Slightly strange, but reasonable, she supposed, the man had said he didn't want other students around. What for, she could only guess.

"I have a test for you."

Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "You're not going to tell me anything about this first?" she said through a mouthful of chicken-and-salad sandwich that she'd grabbed from the cafeteria.

"Before I describe the job I have to know you can do it."

"Why?"

Cobb seemed to hesitate. "It's not, strictly speaking, legal."

That got her attention. Her head snapped up and her brown eyes widened. How could anything potentially involving her- an architect- an architecture _student_ , possibly be criminal in any way?

"You have two minutes," he said, reaching into a duffel bag at his side for a simple artist's notebook and a black fine liner, "to design a maze that takes one minute to solve."

Alright, so maybe this Cobb wasn't as normal as she'd first thought. She swallowed the remains of her lunch and reached for the pen.

"Go," he said.

Ariadne had always hated having a time limit. At a lost, she tried to replicate the mazes she'd done as a little girl- the kind you found on the back of milk cartoons and cereal boxes- drawing straight lines at random.

"Stop."

It wasn't her best attempt. Horrible, in fact. Out of the ten or so lines she'd actually managed to draw, there was one path clearly etched among them. The rest were just disconnected dead ends.

Cobb took one glance at the puzzle and traced the solution as though he'd made it up himself. He ripped the offending page out of the sketchbook.

Well. She knew it wasn't exactly a good maze, but Ariadne hadn't thought it was _that_ bad…

"Again," Cobb commanded.

This time she was a little faster. More lines this time, more twists and turns but only one path. There wasn't any wrong turns to take, the maze would only slow a person down.

"Stop."

Cobb solved it just as quickly as the last one, this time shaking his head as though in pity. "You're going to have to do better than tha-"

His sentence was cut short by Ariadne snatching the sketchbook out of his hand. So he wanted her to impress him?

She flipped the book over, to the cardboard back cover that he couldn't rip out. She'd been confining herself to what she thought a maze should look like, should be, with an entrance and an exit and straight lines baring the way. That wasn't going to work.

The black pen traced concentric circles onto the page. She didn't look up, but she could sense Cobb watching her carefully.

As if to prove her point, she finished before the time, handing the book back to Cobb with an almost challenging expression etched in her perfect features.

This time, the person had to start from the middle. And Ariadne was glad to see Cobb was clearly stumped.

"That's more like it."

A tiny smile curled her lips.

 

Arthur checked and double checked the location written on the paper in Cobb's firm handwriting. He'd already committed it to memory, but there was room for error there. Best to be on the safe side.

Or maybe it was just nerves. That might have been it.

Arthur really didn't support Cobb's decision to come to Paris, it was far too accessible for his liking. But, he supposed, Cobb had a point in that they needed an Architect, and a good one. He was sceptical about whether or not Miles would agree, but then it wasn't as if they really had a choice.

They'd split up again, both men staying in separate hotels on opposite sides of the city, just to be on the safe side. There was a far greater chance they would be recognised if they were together. Arthur had organised it all from the plane: it was his job, after all. To be the organiser. The information gatherer. The one who kept Cobb's shit together and made his dreams reality, so to speak. The point man.

Other people might have been annoyed at not having the top job- not being in charge, the centre of the show. But Arthur liked it just fine. It was what he was good at, after all.

This time it had been Cobb who had found themselves a working place, however. Arthur supposed it was reasonable- Cobb had studied here, after all. According to him, it was a disused warehouse perfect for practicing extraction, and introducing a new member to the field.

Yes. That was where his business partner was now. Finding another Architect hopefully more trustworthy and talented than Nash. It had surprised Arthur when he had suggested it, at first- Cobb usually had great reservations when it came to telling people- especially people with their whole lives ahead of them- about shared dreaming. Ironic, in some respects- both of them had started dreaming early on, although Arthur had gotten into it at a younger age than his colleague. Cobb had started in his twenties- Arthur had been dreaming since eighteen.  Still, Cobb had been working longer than Arthur had and he usually trusted his colleague's judgement.

A few more corners, and one tight turn into an alleyway he wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't looking for it. Then out onto a slightly more decently sized street. There were hardly any tourists out here and the general crowd had thinned. And then- ah. There it was.

Arthur dug in his pockets for the keys and approached a set of rather impressive looking double doors. Warehouse, indeed. The doors swung open to reveal a massive- if tainted slightly by the faint scent of mould- space. There were even glass skylights illuminating the room from the top of the tall sloped ceiling. But there was no denying no one had been there in a while. The windows were boarded up or covered with newspaper, and dust settled thick on various mysterious boxes lining the walls.

It wasn't really a warehouse at all, Arthur thought. There was furniture here which suggested someone had used it as an office, maybe a study group. One unstable looking shelf even had some books on it. Perfect for what they needed.

Good. So there wasn't much Arthur had to do, except set up.

He shrugged off his coat, set down his satchel, and looked around for things he could use. In the corner there were two dusty deck chairs- exactly what he needed. He dragged them to the centre of the room, along with a simple wooden table that would do nicely. As per Cobb's instructions, inside a dilapidated cupboard were two PASIV devices that looked in relatively good nick- hardly used, if at all. He carefully took one of the silver briefcases out of the protective case and set it on the table.

He checked his watch. They would arrive any moment now.

 

It really was a quaint little café.  Ariadne sat admiring the atmosphere of the cobbled street they were on as she took delicate sips of a cup of tea.

Cobb, the business man who was so unlike anyone else she'd met- was seated opposite her, talking, giving her a job description, so to speak. She found it almost ironic that she was getting the briefing after she'd already passed the test, but then her day had been far from ordinary ever since Miles had introduced them. Not that she blamed him, not at all. She was grateful- the world that Cobb was describing seemed impossible, like something out of a sci-fi movie. A world with shared dreaming belonged in some alternate reality along with the Matrix and all that. But despite herself, she was intrigued. More than intrigued. If it was real- she thought of all the opportunities it would open up for her, as an architect.

"They say we only use a fraction of our brain's true potential- that's when we're awake. When we’re asleep, our mind can do almost anything," he explained.

"Such as?" she prompted.

"Well, imagine you're designing a building, right, you consciously create each aspect. But sometimes, it feels like it's almost creating itself, if you know what I mean…"

"Yeah," Ariadne said, jumping in. "Like I'm discovering it."

It was in moments such as those- with a pencil and sketchbook in hand- that she loved architecture the most. She loved the feeling she got when she had so many ideas she couldn't possibly get them on paper fast enough, her mind flying in harmony with her body.

"Genuine inspiration, right?"

Ariadne nodded. Cobb had nailed the feeling exactly.

"Now," he continued, "In a dream, our mind continuously does this."  Cobb fumbled in his pockets for something, withdrawing a pen- the same art liner he'd had earlier, in fact. He pulled an unused napkin from the tray.

"We create and perceive our world simultaneously," he said, drawing what looked like two semicircles on the rough canvas of the napkin. "And our mind does this so well that we don't even know it's happening. That allows us to get right in the middle of that process."

Cobb drew a straight line through the two curved ones, to emphasise his point.

"How?" Ariadne asked.

"By taking over the creating part. This is where I need you," he said, smiling a little when he saw the sceptical look on her face. He straightened up. "You create the world of the dream. We bring the mark into that dream and they fill it with their subconscious."

It was a lot to take in all at once. Ariadne's brain was spinning slightly, but in a good way, although she wasn't sure if she could disguise her confused expression.

"How could I ever...acquire enough _detail_ to make them think that it's reality?" It had been nagging at her brain since the beginning of their conversation. Sure, she might be a decent student, topped the class once or twice, but that was in designing _buildings,_ not whole streets or suburbs or who knew what else. She hadn't designed everything, right down to the litter on the floor and the chips in the bricks. Those were the sorts of things that accumulated over time, but were necessary, she supposed, to what Cobb was suggesting. She couldn't just build a utopic town and expect anyone to assume it was real.

Apparently Cobb had expected her to ask. A wry smile twisted his features.

"Well. Dreams- they feel real when we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realise something was actually strange."

Ariadne just looked at him.

"Let me ask you a question. You never really remember the beginning of a dream, do you? You always wind up right in the middle of what's going on."

What was his point? "I guess, yeah."

"So how we end up here?"

She answered without thinking. "We just came from the, uh-"

"Think about it, Ariadne, how did you get _here_? Where are you right now?"

Her eyes widened as it hit her. "We're dreaming?" she asked, incredulous.

"You're actually in the middle of the workshop right now, sleeping. This is your first lesson in shared dreaming. Stay calm."

She barely took in his words. Her cup- still with the residue of tea in it- was shaking, the spoon rattling against the saucer. Suddenly the café seemed very quiet.

Ariadne slowly raised her head to look at Cobb.

Then the bookshop exploded.

It was strange, some small part of her mind thought, the explosions didn't look like the ones on TV. It happened as though in slow motion, paper rocketing into the air and falling in a fountain of confetti. Other stores along what had been a picturesque French side street were sending debris flying everywhere, fruit and chairs and even trinkets for tourists exploding in mid-air. The cobblestones from the ground were shooting upwards like water from a geyser.

It was beautiful.

_Non, rien de rien…_

Clean, in fact, and she realised that was what felt so off. There were no glass fragments even as windows shattered, no fire even when there should have been. She watched it in fascination, in awe, knowing it wasn't real and that she was the reason it was there.

Funny. She hadn't had to worry about attention to detail after all.

A movement by her side made her head turn. Cobb was bracing himself in his chair, hands covering his face as he winced.

That was confusing. "If it's just a dream, then why are you-" she broke off, mid word, mid screech.

She broke off as the shard of glass skewered her in the face.

 

_Non, je ne regrette rien._

Her brown eyes snapped open. For a moment she was disoriented, panicking as she tried to remember where she was. Her breaths came in shallow, rasping gasps as she gathered her thoughts. That was right. They were in a warehouse of sorts, weren't they, Cobb had come with her for a lesson. Strange. Ariadne had known she was going under, and yet she hadn't remembered any of it whilst she was in the dream. It was like- well, it was exactly like Cobb had said. It seemed so strange to her now. How had she possibly fooled herself into thinking it was reality? And she'd thought it would have been hard…

"Because it's never just a dream, is it? And a face full of glass hurts like hell when you're in it. It feels real."

Cobb was continuing his sentence, answering the question she'd asked in the dream as if nothing had happened in between. Like she hadn't just-died.  That was it, Ariadne realised, that was what made it feel so authentic. The feel of it all. It seemed impossible to her, the way her mind had recreated the taste of tea and the smells of the market and the sounds of the street life bustling around them. And the feel of the glass in her face, too. That had definitely- well, made an impression.

Ariadne wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't experienced it herself.

"It's why the military developed dream sharing," said a calm voice to her side. She turned her head. There was another person with them, one she had forgotten. How had she forgotten him? He was memorable, to say the least. Arthur, Cobb's colleague, had his black hair slicked back to perfection and was wearing a three piece suit in a tasteful beige. He didn’t even look that old- maybe in his late twenties- and yet dressed with the same attention to detail she associated with a business man in his forties. The only concessions he'd made that indicated his age was the fact his jacket was slung over the chair, and his marron sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. "It was a training program for the soldiers- to shoot and stab and strangle each other and wake up."

Ariadne had regained her wits, and her curiosity. She turned to Cobb, who was leaning forward in his chair. "How did architects become involved?"

"Someone had to design the dreams, right? Why don't you give us another five minutes?" he said to Arthur, who turned towards a table which had a briefcase on it- at least, something that looked like a briefcase. Ariadne was so shell shocked from all the things she'd been told she was prepared to believe it was a fish, for all she knew. All she knew was that the wires running from her wrist came to meet Cobb's there, and that therefore it was probably something to do with dreaming.

"Five minutes?" she all but screeched, incredulous. "We were talking for-" she stopped when she realised she didn’t actually know exactly how long they'd been at that café. "For like, at least an hour," Ariadne finished somewhat lamely.

Cobb seemed to have an explanation at the ready yet again. She wondered how often he did this, how often he introduced someone else to their crazy world. "In a dream, your mind functions more quickly, therefore time seems to feel more slow."

"Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream," Arthur added.

Ariadne just sat there, still a little too stunned to say anything.

"Why don't you see what you get up to in five minutes," Cobb said.

She gave a small nod, which he passed around to Arthur. Finger on the button, all wired up, she didn’t even have time to be nervous.

Cold liquid seeped into her veins and she slept like a baby.

 

The first thing Cobb was aware of were the stones. The cobble stones, lining the street in neat squares and harking back to a much older period of time. Instinct kicked in, and he reminded himself that this place had no older time, no history. It had been brought into existence by them and would disappear as soon as they left it. It didn't really exist at all, at least not in the casual sense of the word.

He was walking, just behind a person, who he immediately recognised as the architecture student. She was definitely real- it was etched in her expression, which was  a curious mix of amazement and bewilderment that seemed strangely natural on her perfect features. She didn't turn around as he spoke.

"You got the basic layout- the bookstore, the café- almost everything else is here too." It was amazing, frankly, exactly _how much_ she had replicated. Cobb was impressed- after all, this was only Ariadne's second time dreaming- and the first she was actually aware of it.

She was curious, even when she was shocked, even when he knew how hard it must be for her to accept everything he was saying. That was good. Inquisitiveness was a trait he valued in others, one that was prominent in himself, also. At least it had been. Before- well, before it had all gone wrong.

"Who are the people?" his student asked. Indeed, there were a lot of people- a classic busy day in the Parisian markets, he'd have ventured at a guess, if he hadn't known it was a dream. Cars rolled slowly past, weaving their way through meandering pedestrians and messengers walking their bikes. There was nothing to connect them, it seemed at a glance. Men and women, old and young all could be seen. A classic cross section of the French public, in other words. 

"Projections of my subconscious."

"Yours?" She turned her head to look at him, a question in her eyes.

"Yes. Remember, you are the _dreamer_. You build this world. I am the subject- my mind _populates_ it. You can literally _talk_ to my subconscious. That's one of the ways we extract information from the mark," Cobb said.

"How else do you do it?"

It was a long time since he'd had to explain this stuff to anyone- a long time since he'd actually even _spoken_ to someone who wasn't strictly to do with the job or a basic necessity like eating. He'd forgotten what it felt like to- well, to not know about shared dreaming.

"By creating something secure like a bank vault or a jail. The mind automatically fills it with information it's trying to protect.  Understand?"

"Then you break in and steal it."

There was a beat of silence, as Cobb tried to work his way around the question. Ariadne was quick on the uptake, at least.

She was looking at him expectantly.

"Well," Cobb said, looking at the ground like a chided schoolboy.

They walked on, passing street stalls offering books and crafts and flowers- all manner of odds and ends. The bells of a church chimed in the distance, adding to the picturesque atmosphere of the setting. Ariadne seemed to be devouring everything solely with the power of her eyes- she seemed determined to remember every little intricate detail.

"I guess I thought that- the dream space would be all about the visual, but it's more about the feel of it. " She paused, halting and turning to face Cobb. "My question is, what happens when you start messing  with the physics of it all?"

Cobb opened his mouth to answer, when his attention was averted. A loud, ear piercing sound was emanating from- from the buildings at the end of the street. It sounded like metal apon metal, brick grinding against brick. He wondered what it was.

His mouth fell open. Not only did it sound like those things- it was. It was the sound of the street being bent over. The sound of buildings that appeared to be centuries old folding apon themselves.

Cobb watched in awe as Ariadne folded a street like one might fold the laundry, with a single thought. No one else seemed to notice- his projections were hurrying along as though nothing was happening. He dropped his gaze to the girl beside him. She, too, was gazing, transfixed, mesmerised, as she saw how much power she had in this world.

It was like she had given the command to make a cube, a box, like she had taken a piece of paper and started from the top, folding and creasing till she had a 3D shape. Except that the street wasn't flat or malleable like paper was. It was very, very three dimensional.

The first side locked into place, exactly perpendicular with the level they were standing on. Cobb didn't know for certain, of course- but if he had to guess, he'd have said that a protractor would deem the meeting point a right angle precisely.

A shadow fell over them as the buildings formed a blockade to the sky above, and yet strangely there still seemed to be a source of light. It still appeared to be daytime, and yet there was no sun, no streetlights illuminated, nothing. With the classic neatness of all the Parisian buildings, all the flats were the same shape and size, and the top level fell into place with a resounding _boom_ that echoed through his the core of his bones. The really interesting thing was, though, was that on each separate side life continued on, his projections milling about, or running late for work, or doing whatever they were doing. Cars continued into the distance as though the street was infinite, as though there was no vertical street for them to crash into. The cube was complete, and Cobb realised with a jolt that they could no longer be sure they were the bottom. Each side had its own individual laws of gravity.

Ariadne looked at it appreciatively. "It's something, isn't it?"

Cobb's neck was hurting from gazing up, and he was frowning, slightly. "Yes, it is," he said, absentmindedly.

They continued walking, until they came to the end of their section of the giant die. It met on what looked like a zebra crossing- but each had been cut off as the other side intercepted it. The resulting effect was something of a border running along the two sides.

Ariadne glanced at him, as if looking for guidance. Then she outstretched a leg and simply walked up the wall, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Cobb followed in her wake.

_At least there's no chance of Ariadne mistaking this for reality,_ he thought wryly.

Cobb was feeling uneasy. There were more people on this side, and they had limited time as it was.

Ariadne seemed to share the feeling. "Why are they all looking at me?" she asked, as people passed them by.

It was unmistakable. All of them held eye contact, breaking it only when they were too far away to turn their heads any further. So she had noticed.

"Because my subconscious feels that someone else is creating this world. The more you change things, the quicker the projections start to converge."

That explanation earned a worried stare. "Converge?"

"They sense the foreign nature of the dreamer. They attack- like white blood cells, fighting an infection."

"They're going to attack us?" Ariadne sounded sceptical, not at all afraid.

"No." Cobb paused, raising his eyebrows. "Just you."

They had come to a river- Cobb might have thought it was the Seine if he hadn't known where he was. Ariadne narrowed her eyes, as if squinting for a detail, and with a jolt Cobb realised she was doing it again. Changing the dreamscape. With a reluctant creaking sound, the foundations of the bridge in front of them lengthened, pillars rising from nowhere and steps beckoning them towards it. Ariadne didn't seem surprised- or even awed, like last time. She walked with deliberate steps to her creation.

"This is great," Cobb called out to her. "But I'm telling you, if you keep changing things like this…" He left the sentence unfinished, like a threat hanging in the air. She didn't even turn around.

Supressing a sigh, Cobb followed her.

A projection- a woman who looked to Cobb like a biker of sorts- elbowed into Ariadne as she crossed the narrow bridge. It wasn't a hard blow, but it looked like it hurt.

"Jesus," she complained, rubbing the offending shoulder. "Mind telling your subconscious to take it easy?"

She had to admit, he had warned her.

"It's my _subconscious,_ " Cobb said, as though explaining something to a two year old. "Remember, I can't control it."

And yet, despite all evidence that he was right, Ariadne continued on as though she'd forgotten she'd asked anything.

They'd reached a bridge. Well. More of a lookout point, really.  It was definitely Paris that she had recreated- he could see the distinct outline of the Eiffel tower in the distance. She skipped down the stairs.

There were no projections in this part of the "city", which he found a little strange. Ariadne spotted two massive glass mirrors that were the length of the lookout point themselves, and immediately walked over to them. He watched, curious as to what she would do.

There was a handle on each of the giant panes of reflective glass- they looked almost like doors. Ariadne grabbed the handle of one and swung it around to face him, Cobb. Then she walked with a purpose to the other, and did the same thing so the two were facing.  Reflections of reflections of reflections of Cobb and Ariadne spread infinitely into the distance. What had she planned to do? The same phenomenon occurred in real life. Cobb remembered: he'd  always found it fascinating as a kid.

Ariadne was right up against one of the mirrors now, considering it, raising a delicate hand as though to caress it with her slender fingers.  Cobb frowned. What was she doing?

She touched her palm to the mirror, lightly, with trepidation.

The solid glass shattered, with a resounding, ear-splitting noise that sent startled shivers up his spine.

What had been infinite boxes of Cobb and Ariadne stretching out in the mirror's reflective surface was now-well, no longer just a reflection. The separate boxes had combined, and it had become a bridge, filled with projections that were not themselves. Cobb marvelled at how seamless the transition was- even he could not have managed that on only his second "lesson."

As much as it pained him to admit, the girl had talent. More, perhaps, than Cobb had had at the same age. What had Miles said? _I've got somebody better?_

Cobb was starting to think he might be right.

Ariadne smiled, a wide grin of pure, untainted joy. She was clearly enjoying this.

She walked on without a word, an expression of pure awe colouring her features as she looked around at the world that she now knew she had total control over. Cobb watched her with a bemused look on his face. She seemed so young, so carefree, and for a second he felt the nagging sensation of guilt settling in his stomach. But only a second. It was her choice- she was an adult, no matter how young she seemed. Ariadne was capable of her own decisions. All he could do was give her a choice.

Cobb looked around, studying her handiwork. It really was amazing- he was quite convinced that it could have been a bridge in real life. He looked at the rail, over the water and-

Recognition.

_Her chestnut hair rippling lightly in the breeze, tickling his face. Her straight white teeth smiling at him. Her eyes closing. The view from the bridge is beautiful, but he has eyes only for her, drinking in her presence like a drug, filing away this memory for ever._

Cobb saw it all as though through a second eye- a line of sight into what he once was, his life in a happier time. His pace quickened as he rushed to catch up to Ariadne, to tell her, to _warn_ her…

_She is laughing, her body bending gracefully over the edge of the balcony and straightening as he holds her in his arms. He is happy, she is happy, joyful, and it occurs to him that there are and never will be words good enough to describe this feeling. Both of them are encased in a bubble of ecstasy he only seems to feel when they are together…_

"I know this bridge," Cobb all but shouted. "This place is real, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Ariadne called without turning around. "I cross it every day to get to the college."

"Never recreate places from your memory! Always imagine new places…"

"You gotta draw from stuff you know, right?" Ariadne interrupted.

"Only use details- a, a streetlamp or a phone booth- never entire areas!"

"Why not?"

Cobb was closer to her now. He spoke as though explaining something to an amateur, an idiot, because she wasn't taking this _seriously._ "Because building a dream from your memory is the easiest way to lose your grasp on what's real and what is a dream."

"Is that what happened to you?" she said, nonchalant.

It was too much. Cobb rounded on her, pulling one red-cardigan-clad arm so she was forced to turn and look at him. "Listen," he said, lowering his voice. "This has nothing to do with you. Understand?"

It was quiet. Eerily quiet. But Ariadne was too furious to notice.

"Is that why you need me to build your dreams?" she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Really quiet. Too quiet. And Cobb realised that all his projections' eyes were fixated on her. All of them had stopped what they were doing, forming a circle around them.

A burly man with black hair and a moustache- no, not a man, he was a _projection-_ grabbed her arm, the one Cobb wasn't gripping.

"Hey," he said as he pulled him off. "Get off her."

A woman yanked Ariadne's red cardigan with an unnatural strength. Ariadne yelped, startled.

"Back up," Cobb said to his subconscious. "Back up!" he shouted. The woman wasn't letting go.

She wasn't letting go, and more of them were coming, tearing at her, at the student, raking fingernails and pulling hair and trying to get rid of her, expel her, Cobb's futile efforts to ward them off weren't helping.

Ariadne was panicking now. "Cobb!" she yelled, frantic, hysterical. She was afraid, scared right down in her bones.

What had Cobb said, that the projections would converge?

Well. He'd been right.

Ariadne was kicking and screaming her heart out, a terrifying, primal, gut wrenching scream that shook him, deep down. Cobb was pulled away from her, yelling at her as he went, for her to stay calm although that wasn't working so well for him, was it? His projections were holding him by the arms, others moving in to form a human barrier between himself and Ariadne.

"Let me go! Let me go! Cobb!"

Maybe she'd thought him infallible. Maybe she'd thought he had some control over what was happening. Maybe that was why she seemed so shocked.

It was his subconscious, after all.

They hadn't hurt her much, not yet. He was almost puzzled as to why they hadn't, why two of them were pulling her by the arms but otherwise not touching her, why, why…

Dread settled in the pit of his stomach. There was a figure moving effortlessly through the crowd, people shifting aside for her wordlessly. It was a crowd of bystanders, calming watching the young girl with pure hatred, pure malice in their eyes.

_Her chestnut hair rippling lightly in the breeze…_

No. No. He'd told Arthur he had it under control. He did have it under control, it was his subconscious, his mind goddamnit, his mind….

_He has eyes only for her, drinking in her presence like a drug…_

She wore a neutral coloured overcoat. High heels, too, that made sharp, loud sounds as she walked with purpose towards them. Funny, really, how he could hear it over the shouting.

_You're waiting for a train…_

He snapped out of it. Broke.

"Mal! No! Mal!" Cobb screamed, over and over and over like a broken record and like saying it might make a difference, might make her go away but she didn't listen, she wasn't listening, was she?

"Wake me up! Wake me up!" Ariadne was hysterical because he knew she could see it, could see the knife gleaning in the dull sunlight of the fabricated world, could see the woman walking towards her. There was no mistaking her intentions.

 "MAL!" His throat was sore but maybe he could stop it, maybe, or maybe screaming was just hard wired into the brain. Just hard wired for the last few moments of your life when you knew you were beaten, gone, dead.

"MAL! NO, NO!"

"WAKE ME UP! WAKE ME-"

The slender arm stretched backwards and the knife point thrust deliberately into Ariadne's heart.

 

Gasping. Choking. She sounded like someone drowning, someone who'd been under water for too long and had just been pulled up. Leaning forward in her seat because Ariadne had died, she had just _died,_ so why could she feel anything?

Her eyes were closed, she realised belatedly, she opened them. There it was. The warehouse. She was awake, awake and very much not dead, but she had died, hadn't she? She had died in the dream.

Her brain was still panicking. She could still feel the phantom pain in her heart, the second of shock before it had all gone, and she had arrived here. Arrived. Huh. Funny, she'd used that word like she'd left or something. Ariadne hadn't, at least she didn't think so. Or maybe her mind had gone and her body remained, she didn't know, she didn't know, she didn't care.

She had felt the cold metal of the knife enter her body, impaled up to the hilt. She had felt herself gasp her last rough, panicked breathes. She had thought her last thought.

And none of it was real.

To put it lightly, it was disconcerting.

Footsteps. She could hear them. Light footsteps, scurrying towards her- her bedside? Like she was in a hospital or something. Only that didn't make sense, did it? No one used crappy deck chairs for hospital beds.

The thought was so absurd it almost made her laugh.

"Hey," a familiar baritone said. "Hey, are you okay?"

Arthur. Cobb's colleague. He was crouching down, holding her arm.

"Hey. Look at me. You're okay."

She turned her head, forcing herself to focus on him.

"You're okay."

"Why," Ariadne said in between gasps. "Why wouldn't I wake up?"

Arthur straightened up, as though he'd realised something. Ariadne barely noticed. She was trying to collect herself, remind her body that it wasn't dead, to stop _panicking,_ although it wasn't working much.

Arthur spoke in the calm, assuring tone that she had very quickly- even in the short time she'd known him- come to associate with him. "Because there was still some time on the clock, and you can't wake up from within the dream unless you die." He spoke as though it was something as ordinary as-as some rule of maths, she didn’t know. Some equation.

His fingers were deftly undoing her tubes, disconnecting her from the world in which she had been so recently murdered.

"She'll need a totem," a voice said.

Fury boiled up in her, rising to the surface like the bubbles on a stove. Cobb. Cobb whose subconscious had just _torn her to pieces,_ Cobb who hadn't helped her one bit as the woman came to kill her. Cobb, who apparently had the nerve to then command her to do something, completely disregarding the things she'd just gone through.

She hadn't noticed him wake up, although she betted that it hadn't been because of a brutal stab to the heart.

"What?" she yelled after him, as he untangled himself from the wires and walked out of the room. She wasn't quite sure what she was asking about.

Arthur glanced behind him, then back at her. "A totem- it's a small personal item-"

"That's some subconscious you got on you, Cobb. She's a real charmer!"

No answer. But Arthur seemed to glean something from it.

"Oh." he said, drawing out the sound. "I see you met Mrs Cobb."

It was so out of the blue that Ariadne was shocked into silence for a second. But just a second.

"She's his _wife?"_ she asked incredulously.

Wow. So, not only had she been horribly and violently killed by the subconscious of a man she was supposed to trust, but said subconscious was also his wife.

Cobb's wife.

"Yeah. So, a totem." Arthur jumped in before she could say anything else. "You need a small object, potentially heavy, that you can have on you all the time so that no one else knows-"

"Like a coin?" Ariadne's head was hurting, just a little. She held her forehead in her hands.

"No- it needs to be more unique than that. Like this is a loaded die." Arthur withdrew a small, red object from his pocket. It was a cube, six sided, like any other die to her eyes. It was faintly translucent.

She reached out a hand to touch it, to see how it was significant, but Arthur withdrew his hand.

"I can't let you touch it. That would defeat the purpose. You see only I know the balance and the weight of this particular loaded die. That way, when you look at your totem, you know beyond a doubt that you're not in someone else's dream."

This was ridiculous. Was he trying to distract her?

"I- I don't know if you can't see what's going on, or if you just don't want to," Ariadne said, looking the man across from her right in his cocoa eyes. He raised a sceptical eyebrow. "But Cobb has some serious problems that he's tried to bury down there. And I'm not about to just _open my mind_ to someone like that."

She'd had enough of this place, the dreams, the dying, the people in it. Grabbing her blood red cardigan from the back of the chair she stormed out, leaving Arthur looking bemused behind her.

 

Well. So much for the new Architect.

Arthur stood up, gathering wires from the floor and arranging them into neat bundles he replaced in the briefcase.  It was a pity, really. He'd liked her. She had a sort of burning curiosity- a thirst for information- that seemed to him insatiable . And she was smart, too. She didn't take things at face value.

That was a very, very important skill for people like them.

 "She'll be back." Cobb had returned, apparently, as soon as the coast was clear. "I've never seen anyone pick it up that quickly before. Reality's not going to be enough for her now, and when she comes back..." Cobb trailed off, apparently lost in a reverie. "When she comes back, you're going to have her building mazes."

Arthur shut the PASIV and looked at him, noting the use of the singular pronoun. "Where are you going to be?"

"I gotta go visit Eames."

Oh, god. Not Eames. Arthur could remember the last time they'd worked together. Sure, they'd made a good team, but-well. They hadn't exactly got on well.

"Eames?" Arthur said, trying his best to remain neutral. "No, he's in Mombasa. Cobol's backyard." Surely even Cobb wouldn't jeopardise his safety just for one more member of the team?

"It's a necessary risk."

"There's plenty of good thieves," Arthur said, narrowing his eyes as he shook his head.

Cobb sighed with impatience. "We don't just need a thief," he said as he shrugged on a heavy black overcoat. "We need a forger."

Oh, god. Something told Arthur this was only the beginning.


	5. Chapter 5

The place was dark, dingy- any sunlight that could reach through the few windows was clouded by cigarette smoke and the number of sweaty bodies. People jostling and yelling so Cobb couldn't really discern any individual words from the din. Well. There was a possibility  that it wasn't all that loud, but as an American, Swahili tended to all blend into one noise.

Arthur had been right about Cobb going to Kenya, to Mombasa- practically walking into Cobol's headquarters. They had people everywhere, or so Arthur had said. But in the end he had let Cobb go for the same reason he always did- Cobb was in charge. That, and his instinct for doing things was pretty much always right.

It was surprisingly easy to find the forger. Sure, he had told them after their last collaboration that he'd be here, but he didn't exactly take that many precautions, did he? Maybe he thought he could protect himself, or maybe just the fact Arthur was damned good at his job. Probably a combination of the two.

In any case, Cobb spot Eames the minute he walked in the door, despite the crowd, despite the fact his back was turned. The man's dirty blonde hair was parted on the side as always, slicked neatly in two directions, standing out like a beacon of light amidst all the Kenyan locals. As if to top off the effect, he wore a loud pink shirt and a suit in the same unidentifiable colour of his hair. He was hunched over the table, half a smile on his lips, watching the game intently. Eames only had two poker chips left, and was rubbing them together vigorously.

"You can rub them together all you want, they're not going to breed." Cobb said from behind him, by way of greeting.

To his credit, Eames didn't appear surprised. "You never know," he said, placing them on the table. Number thirteen.

"Let me get you a drink," Cobb offered as the dice were rolled.

Eames lost. He stood up and left the table. "You're buying."

Cobb followed Eames back to the cashier, presenting two mysterious stacks of chips to the man that most certainly hadn't been there before. Cobb picked one off the top as the employee fumbled for cash.

"Well," he said, considering the small red object in his hands. "Your spelling hasn't improved."

"Piss off."

Cobb gave a soft laugh and replaced it. "How's your handwriting?"

Eames collected his money, raising his eyebrows as he looked Cobb full in the face. "Versatile," he said, simply.

"Good."

Eames mumbled a polite thank you to the cashier as they walked away.

 

Somehow, Cobb's appearance hadn't come a surprise to Eames. It wasn't as though he was expecting it- he had his own team to manage, and it wasn't like they worked together on a regular basis. But that one job they had done together had gone flawlessly. They had clicked. Although they should have been competitive considering their positions in the team, they weren't.

His own team had broken up to do individual work recently, though, and it was time for Eames to do the same. Cobb's arrival was promising- if he needed Eames, most likely it was an interesting job. And Eames only took a job if it was challenging. There were other, safer, dishonest ways to make a buck and Eames had a-talent- for most of them.

So, sitting next to the window in a bar, sipping a beer opposite him, Eames wasn't as shocked as someone might have been when Cobb spoke.

"Inception."

Eames didn't even raise his eyebrows. He just crossed his legs and swallowed another mouthful of his drink.

"Now, before you bother telling me it's impossible, it's-"

So that was what he thought. Cobb really had to stop assuming everyone had the same views as him. "No," he drawled, "It's perfectly possible, it's just bloody difficult." Eames took a nut from the bowl in the middle of the table.

Cobb seemed put out for a moment. "Interesting. Because Arthur keeps telling me it can't be done."

Alternatively, Cobb had to stop accepting Arthur's word as gospel. It surprised him that the two were still working together. The members of his own team were constantly shifting, and not just because some of them wanted to leave. But he guessed Cobb and Arthur had been working pretty much together since- since long before Eames had met them, that was for sure. Other extractors and their teams, like himself, tended to break up and do individual work for other teams at some point- but Eames didn't recall either of the two men ever getting sick of each other. It was sort of common knowledge amongst people in their line of work that they came as a package deal.

Eames chuckled. "Arthur," he said, as though remembering a particularly good joke. Which he was, but that was beside the point. "You still working with that stick-in-the-mud?"

He could see Cobb let the insult slide. Eames had called Arthur much worse than that. "He's a good point man."

"Oh, he's the best. But he has no imagination."

Cobb allowed him that with an inclination of the head. "Unlike you."

But they both knew they weren't  there for fun and games, this casual banter. Eames got to the point. "Listen, if you're going to perform inception you _need_ imagination." Much as he loved Arthur, he wasn't the man for this job. Eames smiled at the thought- their enmity went both ways. And the idea of somebody putting the words _loved_ and _Arthur_ in the same sentence was frankly ridiculous.

Cobb ignored the jibe to his colleague. Instead, he leant forwards, as if to make sure Eames was listening.  He looked troubled by something. "Let me ask you something," he said, creases forming in his forehead between his eyes. "Have you done it before?"

Eames slung an arm over the window sill. "We tried it. We got the idea in place, but it didn't take."

"You didn't plant it deep enough." It was a statement, not a question.

Eames shook his head. "No, it's not just about depth- you need the simplest version of an idea in order for it to grow naturally in your mark's mind...it's a very subtle art. "

Cobb was silent, sipping his beer.

"So what is this idea you need to plant?" Eames prompted.

"We need the heir of a major corporation to dissolve his father's empire," Cobb said, running a hand through his hair.

"You see, right there," Eames said, "You have various political motivations, anti-monopolistic sentiments and so forth- and all of that stuff, that's really at the mercy of your mark's prejudice, you see. Then what you have to do is start at the absolute basic."

Cobb looked at him, a question in his ice blue eyes.

"Which is what?"

Eames sighed, setting down his drink. "The relationship with the father."

There was a pause.

"Do you have a chemist?" Eames asked.

"No, not yet."

"Right. Well, there's a man here-Yusuf- he formulates his own versions of the compounds," Eames said, leaning back in his chair and looking at the bar.

"Why don't you take me there?"

So he hadn't noticed.  Dear, dear. Cobb was getting rusty.

Eames slapped his hand on the table, turning to him. "Once you've lost your tail," he said, as though he was commenting on the weather.

Cobb didn't even flinch.  He'd clearly been expecting it to some degree- not even his eyes betrayed any hint of shock. He just accepted the fact.  Of course he did- people like Cobb and Eames were more than a bit familiar with this scenario. He raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

"Man at the bar," Eames clarified.

"Cobol Engineering." Cobb sounded resigned, like a man who had been hoping for the best but expecting the worst. "That price on my head- was that dead or alive?

"Doesn't matter." The corner of Eames's mouth quirked up in a smile. "See if he starts shooting."

Cobb gave him a look. "Run interference. I'll meet you downstairs, at the bar, in say- half an hour?"

Eames nodded. "Back here?"

"It's the last place they'll expect."

Well. He had a point, there. Irrefutable, in fact. Eames made a note to use that strategy sometime.

Popping the last of the peanuts into his mouth, he stood up, walking over to the man he had pointed out. Really. As lackeys went, this one was rather pathetic. He looked about as much at home as Arthur would in a night club- dressed in a starched suit and blue tie and wearing an expression of such obvious unease. And any effort he was making to conceal his frequent glances towards their table went entirely to waste.

Eames knew exactly what to do. With a last look at Cobb- who would have looked as though he was considering leaping out of the _window_ , if Eames didn't know him better- he marched forwards.

"Freddy!" he shouted as he approached the man, beer dangling at his side. The business man turned, startled. Seriously, this guy wore his thoughts all over his face. "Freddy Simmonds! My god, it's you, isn't it?"

The man opened his mouth to protest. Eames could only liken it to a gaping fish.

There was a resounding crash from behind them. Blue tie started, and then ran away.

Following Cobb, who apparently _had_ been considering leaping out of the window.

For the love of God. So much for an inconspicuous exit.

Realising belatedly that his hand was still raised in greeting, Eames sighed.

"Oh," Eames said, to empty air. "No. It isn't."

 

The fall would have perhaps been incapacitating, Cobb reflected, if he had not landed on the mat. Of course, it had had the downside of scaring the bejesus out of the innocent women next to it, and also the fact that the second Cobol lackey was less than five metres down the street. But Cobb was still in one piece. He could still run.

Theoretically, at least.

Cobb scrambled to his feet. Someone was shouting at him, yelling, running towards him.

"Not dreaming now, are y-?" The Cobol man said between laboured breaths, before he was cut off.

Cobb slammed his full body weight into him unceremoniously as he got up. There was the distinctive sound of glass shattering as he shoved the man aside into a street side stall.

Well. If nothing else, it was effective.

_Run._

People were starting to look at him, stopping what they were doing to stand and watch him run with judgemental eyes. Cobb paid them no heed. He was sprinting, running, shoving blindly through the crowd and ignoring all the angry yells he was getting because he had to get _away._

Cobb was grabbing people, pushing them aside as though they weighed no more than toys. Fear and determination gave him strength. He could sense, rather than see, the Cobol employees  on his tail again, recovered from their various wounds or maybe too dumb to really care. Or maybe Cobb had just underestimated them. He didn't know. Didn't really care: he was focused on one thing, and one thing only. His limbs ached from the fall and his breath came in short, painful gasps that didn't seem to draw enough air into his needy lungs- but he was focused. His mind urged his limbs on with one command, one instinct ingrained in even the most basic of animals. Fight or flight, and there really only was one option in his case.

_Run._

The man behind him, the one in the lead, ran with uneven footfalls that seemed so loud to his mind. Or maybe they weren't, and it was just the fear that amplified the sound. Cobb realised belatedly that they were different people, now, to the ones who had originally been tailing him. That was unnerving, just a little. How many people had the engineering company sent out to look for him? They couldn't have known he was here, not so quickly. At least, he didn't think so. But Cobb didn't really have time to ponder that.

They were gaining on him. Cobb looked frantically for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon, as something to deter them. He grabbed a spoon of some sort from a screaming woman's stall, not pausing to check what it was. With the kind of accuracy that could only have come from practice, he struck the man across the face, sending him sprawling. The second man didn't look twice at his injured colleague as he ran past.

A cricket bat. Or maybe it was a wine bottle. That would have to do. His aim was a little off this time, having misjudged the momentum. But Cobb wasn't keeping track. Another hit, and the second one went down. Cobb couldn’t see any more following him, but he wasn't about to let that fool him. He hadn't exactly made an inconspicuous exit from the bar, and more people were bound to be on their way. He just had to - blend in- so they didn't notice him. They didn't have the advantage of the trail of screaming Kenyans he had blazed in his mad dash for safety.

All in a day's work, really.

Needless to say, extraction wasn't the most relaxing of jobs.

Two men were carrying something- rice, maybe, but Cobb didn't have time to alter his path. With the air of a superhero from the comics he used to read as a kid he leapt over the pile. More shouts came from behind him. Yells. Commands. Arms flailing widely, gesturing for people to catch him, catch Cobb. It seemed as though the whole city was against him.

He almost fell over when the crowd gave way to a coffee shop. The lanky youth he'd just bowled over spread his arms in the international gesture of "What the hell?" and he apologised hurriedly. It wouldn't do to draw attention to himself.

Cobb just hoped that apologising in English with an obvious American accent wouldn't matter.

He walked over to the only table that had a space, a simple bench occupied by five burly workmen. Even as he walked, calm, poker faced, he could feel the eyes on him. It seemed that everyone knew how out of place he was, how desperate he was to blend, but had responded with the opposite. For God's sake, people were even bending around in their _chairs_ to stare at him. It was- off. It disturbed Cobb, deep down, but this wasn't the time for it. A waiter came over with an order, and he tried to act as though everything was normal, everything was alright.

But the fates apparently had other things on their minds.

The waiter let loose a string of Swahili, jabbering at him. Cobb couldn't understand or even make out a word from the string of speaking, but he had the gist of it.

The very angry gist of it.

"Ah-" Cobb's mind was blank, trying desperately to remember any Swahili he may have picked up. "One-one coffee. Café." French, but hopefully the word was similar in the Kenyan language. Cobb couldn't help it. His mind automatically defaulted to French when he tried to speak a foreign language.  It had never really been his strong point, language.  For god's sake, he'd _lived_ in Paris and it had still taken him ages to pick it up. And he'd long since stopped trying- it was easy to get lazy with Arthur as a translator. Cobb didn't know how he did it, but the point man had a flair for languages, for communication in general. He guessed it was kind of an essential if you had that kind of job.

More talking. Gesturing, forcefully.  The man's voice was raising to a shout now, pouring out of him like a torrent of water, with Cobb frantically trying to stem the flow.  He looked from the man to the door with a growing sense of dread. They couldn't be far behind him now. If not reinforcements than at least the two he'd deterred. And Cobb's plan of fading into the background wasn't working so far, was it? Not with a waiter yelling at him and the whole bar just-just staring.

"Um, a coffee. Une café. Un caffè..." He was rambling, he knew that, just hoping that the man might understand his unspoken plea for silence. But he was shaking his head now, and Cobb felt more and more like this was some kind of nightmare.

The shouting was so loud, so consuming that he didn't hear the footsteps running, calling, approaching. The door to the dingy shop opened and the first of the lackeys burst in. Cobb froze for a second, considering his options. What were the odds that he could somehow talk his way out of it?

The young man with the blue tie withdrew a small black pistol.

With lightning fast reflexes, Cobb dived under the table, a split second before the trigger was pulled and the screaming really started in earnest.

Blue Tie was firing blindly, shot after shot after shot, not caring who he hit as long as one of them was Cobb. The shots rang like fireworks in his ears. A man in a ridiculously pristine white suit ran straight into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Cobb kicked him with all the force he could muster, pushing him off him and aiming a blow to his face. Cobb wasn't armed, which was _so stupid_ , now that he thought of it, sheer stupidity. Knees weak and hands shaking from exhaustion, from adrenaline, from fear, he hauled himself up just as his attacker did.

It was pure luck that the bullet went through his chest, and not Cobb's.

He slumped to the ground, eyes unseeing, unknowing. Cobb felt a fleeting stab of pity for him, for his attacker- but Blue Tie wasn't stopping. The next bullet hit the light perilously close to where Cobb had been just a second before, sending sparks flying. People or not, these men wanted his head- the money that it would bring.

A side door. Back door. Cobb's fingers fumbled with the latch, even though it wasn't locked, not properly. With a final kick the door gave way and his momentum propelled him straight into the man waiting outside. The armed man, who apparently had horrible reflexes. By the time comprehension dawned on his face Cobb was halfway down the alleyway.

_Run._

Business jacket billowing, shots echoing behind him, Cobb ran. His feet were aching, and he wished, bizarrely, that he had come in running shoes. The thought almost brought a bubble of laughter to his lips. Almost.

_Run!_

They were getting closer, gaining on him, but Cobb hadn't given up yet.  One in a grey jacket appeared to have left his gun behind, but was right on Cobb's heels. He could see a black car approaching, honking, and had an idea. He ran full steam into its path, diving away at the last moment.

Grey suit smashed headlong into it.

Blue tie and the man with him shot at the car, and Cobb covered his head with his hands as he jumped over the roof. The car was stopped, now, and it created a blockade between them.

A temporary blockade.

He slid down the back of the car just as the first man's head appeared over the top. He had a head start, but not much. Hopefully, hopefully it was enough.

A twist. A turn. A left. A right. The back laneways of the Kenyan city formed a labyrinth that Cobb was trying so desperately to escape. The shooting had stopped, and Cobb knew that by some miracle his pursuers had run out of ammunition. He had a few, precious, precious minutes before the guns were reloaded and they started up again.

He'd lost track of where he was in the effort to shake them off, screwed his internal compass in the fear. The walls around here were all the same neutral shade that gave absolutely no indication of where he was. Cobb just kept running and hoping that somehow, somehow he'd recognise something to pinpoint his location. A landmark. A shop, heck, anything.

Light. The sort that beckoned to Cobb, like the light at the end of the tunnel. A street- no, that was the wrong word, it was more of a gap between buildings- opened on to what Cobb thought looked like a main street. He could hear cars- good, that would put the men off. If he could squeeze through.

He had less than a minute, Cobb estimated, before the lackeys caught up. He slammed into the gap, trying to squeeze through. He realised with a dawning horror that the gap was far smaller than he had thought it to be, and turned sideways.

Shouts sounded so horribly close to where he was.

Cobb grunted in desperation. Just a bit further. Just a little more…

Footsteps echoed on the path as the men approached.

Everything had slowed down. Cobb's heart was pounding in his ears, drowning out sound and filling the empty space with fear. It was a nightmare. It had to be. The walls were closing in on him and…

He was through. Out. Cobb breathed a sigh of relief as he slowed his pace to a jog down the street, heading back towards the bar. There would be no way the Cobol men would know where he had gone, for god's sake, it was a _maze_ back there.

Too soon. The Range rover pulled up with a screech of tires in front of Cobb, and he scrambled for his footing as two armed men got out.

Not the same ones, but then, who was keeping track?

Cobb pivoted and turned poised to sprint back the way he'd come, when a black limousine door smashed into the first lackey's face. Cobb was so shocked that he stopped dead in his tracks to see an immaculate Japanese business man holding the door open for him.

"Care for a lift, Mr Cobb?" Saito said casually.

Cobb didn't need to be asked twice. Sweat soaked and panting, he clambered into the back seat next to the unsettlingly calm man.

"What are you doing in Mombasa?" Cobb asked between laboured breathes. Seriously, he wasn't objecting- but Cobb already had one set of people tailing him. Did this mean Saito kept track of his every move too? And, worse still, that Cobb hadn't noticed?

"I need to protect my investments," Saito said simply, leaning back in the comfortable chair.

 

Eames was- well, not really annoyed as such, but amused. As extractors went, Cobb was the best of the best- better than everyone, even  Eames, and he admitted that happily.

What Cobb apparently wasn't good at doing was blending in.

Sure, he held the man in great esteem, sure, in so many respects he did his jobs better. But for all his talent, Cobb really had no idea when it came to disguises. Fitting in. Acting of all sorts, really, apart from in the dream.

He could sense Cobb's surprise at Eames being in such plain sight, so easy to find, not hiding from anyone. But what he didn't realise was that the best way to hide was in plain sight- people never expected it, so to speak. And as a forger, Eames spoke from experience.

The stunt Cobb had pulled in his dramatic exit was almost funny- Eames would have thought it was a joke, a bad one, if he hadn't been there himself. Really. Thirty-six, engaged in one of the most dangerous criminal practices in the world and a _star_ at it- and apparently taking advice from cheap spy movies.

Eames had no doubt that Cobb wouldn't get caught. For all his mistakes, the man wasn't stupid. And so it was that Eames was leaning against the doorframe of the bar downstairs half an hour after the fall that a black limousine pulled up.

Well. Not so much pulled up, as slowed.

The tinted window of the back seat rolled down and Cobb slapped the side of the car, gesturing for Eames to get in, and alerting half the street to his presence again. Eames rolled his eyes.

"Ah. So this is your idea of losing a tail, huh?" Eames remarked casually as he strolled over, climbing into the passenger  seat.

"Different tail."

Eames had to smile at that.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Arthur was adjusting a PASIV device when he heard the small noise behind him.  One of the two unassuming cases he had found in the warehouse was working fine- top notch condition, in fact, he had to remember to ask Cobb how he'd achieved that. It was just the second one that needed work- the timer was out of sync with the actual wake-up, and they needed a back up in case anything went wrong.

The tentative sound of a throat being cleared broke his concentration,  and he looked up from the cluttered bench he was working on.  He straightened up as his mind ran through the possibilities. It wasn't Cobb, he was in Mombasa, and Eames would have made his presence known. That left Saito, and Arthur almost panicked for a second- a marron jumper with the sleeves carelessly pushed up wasn't exactly business attire- before he realised Saito didn't yet know where the warehouse was. So-ah.

Cobb had been right, as always.

He pushed back his chair, walking over to where the petite architecture student stood.

"Cobb said you'd be back." Arthur said to Ariadne, the barest hint of a smug smile playing across his features.

She looked sheepish. "I tried not to come, but…"

He finished her sentence for her. Arthur knew the feeling well. "But there's nothing quite like it."

She was wearing her cardigan again, the ruby red one she'd had on before. Different scarf though- she seemed to like scarves, possibly wearing a different one each day of the month, having a collection. Arthur took this all down mentally as he studied her face- it was one of the habits he had as point man. Noticing things.

Of course, Eames would have called it stalking people.

"It's just-" Ariadne seemed to be hunting for the right phrase to describe it. And that was it, wasn't it? Shared dreaming just defied classification. "Pure creation," Ariadne finished.

He couldn't have put it better himself.

Belatedly, Arthur realised he was still staring at her, probably with a ridiculous smile on his face. Hastily, he changed the subject.

"Shall we take a look at paradoxical architecture?" he said, arching a delicate eyebrow.

 

"You're going to have to master a few tricks if you're going to build three complete dream levels," Arthur told her as they leisurely climbed the stairs of the atrium. Ariadne wasn't the dreamer this time; Arthur told her she was the subject, the "mark" as they tended to nickname their targets. It was her subconscious that supplied the projections milling around in the light business complex that Arthur had built, and it fascinated her. Even though they were effectively part of _her,_ she couldn't predict what they were going to do or even control it, and she started to feel just a bit less angry at Cobb.

Just a bit.

Ariadne supposed it wasn't really surprising Arthur had built this kind of landscape- all business and modern just as the man himself. He was dressed more formally in the dream than he had been up top, with a jacket covering the frankly adorable cardigan that had its selves respectfully pulled down. Her own attire hadn't changed, and she wondered whether it was Arthur or herself who had control over what they wore. If it was herself- well. Her subconscious certainly had taste.

"What kind of tricks?" Ariadne asked as they rounded a corner, squeezing past  a woman in a grey skirt who was picking up papers she'd scattered on the floor.

"In a dream you can cheat architecture into impossible shapes," he said, turning to her. " That lets you create closed loops- like the Penrose steps. The infinite staircase."

Ariadne furrowed her brow as they squeezed past a woman in a grey skirt- who was picking up papers. She was starting to smell a rat.

"See?"

He stuck out a hand to stop her as the gap between the next step lengthened until they were looking off the equivalent of a cliff face.

"Paradox," Arthur stated calmly, turning and walking back the way they had come.

It was funny, in a way, how she didn't feel the burning need to ask questions as she had in the dreams before. Maybe it was the- experience- she'd had last time, or maybe because she just knew Arthur would tell her what she needed to know. Nothing more, nothing less. He held a quiet sort of authority over everything, even Cobb, she'd noticed, and she'd only known him a day or two. Jesus- was it really that short a time? It seemed to Ariadne as though she'd been waiting her entire lifetime for shared dreaming- waiting an eternity, in fact- and that this was all she lived for. Already. In the space of a few days.

"So," Arthur was saying as they descended. "A closed loop like that helps you disguise the boundaries of the dream you create."

The boundaries? So far, Ariadne didn't even know _what_ she was meant to build, let alone its limitations.

"Bu- how big do these levels have to be?"

"They can be anything from the floor of a building to an entire city. But they have to be complicated enough that we can hide from the projections."

 "A maze."

"Right. A maze. And the better the maze... "

"The longer we have before the projections catch us."

"Exactly."

It was beginning to click in her mind, the pieces of a puzzle coming together. So that was why Cobb had insisted on the maze test.

They were on the ground floor of the complex now, along with what looked like the majority of the- well, they looked like staff, but they weren't, were they?

"My subconscious seems polite enough," Ariadne said, trying not to think of her unceremonious exit from Cobb's dream two days previously.

Arthur almost chuckled. "You wait. They'll turn ugly. No one likes to feel someone else messing around in their mind."

He glanced at a group of men- in their fifties, she guessed- who had started to look at him. Weird. Already, they were starting to attract attention and it had only been a few minutes into the dream.

Even though Cobb's projections had been violent, they hadn’t been hostile so quickly. Cobb… she wondered, not for the first time, what was wrong with that man. He'd clearly been working with dreaming for a long time- and Miles had known him, hadn't he? Enough to introduce them. And Cobb had seemed to appreciate, albeit grudgingly, what she had created in the dream. It was like- like maybe once, he'd been like her. An architecture student, perhaps. He'd certainly built before.

And yet, for some unfathomable reason, she knew he hadn't for a while.

"Cobb can't build anymore, can he?" she asked in a flat voice. Arthur stopped walking and turned to face her, a curious mix of emotion on his face.

A pause. "I don't know if he can’t, but he won't. " Arthur looked away, as though remembering something. "He thinks it's safer if he doesn't know the layouts."

She could see how uncomfortable it made him to talk about his colleague, but she soldiered on, determined to get the answers she wanted. Needed. "Why?"

"He won’t tell me." Still resolutely looking away. "But I think it's Mal."

Mal. Ariadne could almost feel the phantom pain of the knife hilt buried in her chest. "His ex-wife?"

Arthur's head snapped back towards her so quickly it looked as though it were on a cord. "No, not his ex."

"There're still together?" she asked, sceptically.

Creases formed in Arthur's forehead. His usually passive expression was pained, as though the memory hurt him. His eyes softened. "No," he said, in a voice that was far away, almost apologetic. As if she was too young to know. As if he had forgotten, for a moment, how little she knew, only to be given a rude awaken. "No. She's dead."

Shock. It ripped through her like the blade the woman had killed her with. And for the first time that she could remember, Ariadne was rendered speechless.

"What you see in there is just his projection of her."

Dead. Mal was dead. A dead woman had murdered her. She wasn't real, but she was. Did that mean that Cobb's other projections were real? And-a cold feeling settle d in her chest- what had happened to make Cobb remember her as so… so brutal?

"What was she like in real life?" Ariadne asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft.

"She was lovely."

And Ariadne knew he spoke from the bottom of his heart.

 

Cobb had really had enough of Kenyan backstreets.

Just once, he wanted to be able to access something on the main street, maybe, something in plain sight. Without having to have Eames lead the way through alleyways with men smoking things that didn't look entirely legal, without having to pay a small boy to show them their destination. Sure, the boy looked thrilled, but Cobb wasn't feeling particularly empathetic at that moment.

He was more...tired.

Which was understandable, considering his jetlag and the wild chase through yet more Kenyan backstreets which had occurred less than half an hour previously.

The only thing that perhaps compensated for it all was Saito's expression. The business man might have been on the wrong side of the law- perfectly happy to resort to extractors to get rid of a rival, fine with having a mistress- but he certainly hadn't seen the dirty side of it all. His usually calm expression was replaced by something that could only be described as "sour grapes."

Nevertheless, it came as a relief to all of them when they reached their destination. The boy gestured into what appeared to be a single room shop lined with wall length bookshelves that held what appeared to be chemicals.

Well. They'd come to the right place, apparently.

A rustling noise made Cobb turn to the desk. There was a man seated behind it, one he had not noticed previously. He was dressed in a respectable grey suit, contrasting to his cocoa skin and wiry black hair. And- Cobb had to note this with a bemused expression- he was apparently obsessed with cats. There were at least three in the cramped office.

 "You are seeking a chemist?" he said, in flawless English with only a hint of an accent behind it. So this was their man. What had Eames called him- Yusef? No, it was Yusuf. Yes. That was it. "To formulate compounds for a job?" he continued.

Cobb pulled a chair up and sat down, looking entirely at ease. His gaze didn't waver as he considered the chemist. "And to go into the field with us."

Yusuf shook his head, the barest hint of a smile colouring his features. "I rarely go into the field, Mr Cobb, " he said, as a grey tabby stretched on the shelf beside him.

"We need you there to tailor compounds specific to our needs," Cobb replied.

Yusuf seemed curious. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the party. "Which are?"

"Great depth."

"A dream within a dream," Yusuf clarified, nodding. "Two levels."

"Three."

There was a brief pause, in which Cobb knew the man was questioning his sanity. Heck, even Eames looked up, startled,  at the proposal.

Yusuf leaned forward, as though explaining something particularly obvious to a two year old.  "Not possible. That many dreams within dreams is too unstable."

'It _is_ possible. You just have to add a sedative."

Cobb could almost see the gears working in the chemist's head despite himself. This was clearly a good man for a job. He did it because he enjoyed it, loved it, loved to stretch the boundaries that were put down before him.  "A powerful sedative…" he said, almost as though to himself.

Cobb nodded.

"How many team members?" Yusuf asked.

"Five."

"Six," a voice with a distinctly Japanese accent said.

Cobb turned to see Saito peeling off the wall he had been leaning against, and joining them at the table. He'd been quiet up until this point- Cobb had thought he'd only wanted to check that they were doing their job cleanly and without deception.

Saito seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "The only way to know you've done the job," he said as he pulled a wooden chair from the table, "Is if I go in with you."

 Cobb opened his mouth to retort, but Eames beat him to it.

"There's no room for tourists on a job like this, Mr Saito."

Saito was unfazed. "This time, it seems there is."

Yusuf coughed.

Heads snapped around to see the chemist watching them with a bemused expression. "Ah- This, I think is a good place to start, " he said as he busied himself in the cupboards behind him, finally withdrawing a glass bottle with a sort of yellow liquid inside it. More viscous than water, but runnier than honey, it looked.  "I use it every day."

"What for?' Cobb asked.

"Here, I'll show you." Yusuf rummaged through his draw for a set of old fashioned keys. Then he paused, seeming to reconsider. "Perhaps you will not want to see."

What? If anything, Cobb curiosity was just aroused more. He'd seen a lot as an extractor- too much. It was hard to imagine being shocked by anything anymore.

He stood up. "After you," he said.

 

 

The door gave way to brown. Well. Not everything  in the small adjoining room was the same shade, but Cobb felt pretty confident saying most of it was. Walls, floors, practically all of it was the same unattractive shade of- well, manure, frankly.  Clearly beauty had not been in mind when they'd built this room.

His eyes focused on an elderly man, sitting placidly in an armchair in the centre of the room. He smiled at them, revealing a mouth lacking in any sort of teeth.

Cobb would have felt a stab of pity for him, then, if he had not broadened his gaze.

Dull lighting illuminated their faces. Lanterns hanging precariously among the tubes that wove them together revealed the horror of the scene below. Row upon row of lifeless faces did not stare back at him.

They were sleeping.

Rickety beds were arranged in rows, with IV wires snaking from the ceiling to them. Men and women. Young and old. All- all just sleeping. In the middle of the day. Sleeping.

These were not people who dreamed for work. They were not professionals, no way. And then Cobb knew, knew exactly what they were. What they were there for.

What had Yusuf said? _Perhaps you will not want to see?_

God, he was right.

"Ten, twelve- all connected. Bloody hell." Eames vocalised the thought they were all thinking.  But Cobb knew that he didn't get it, didn’t see what they were doing, didn't understand the _why…_

"They come every day. To share the dream," Yusuf explained.

The old man reached out to slap the face of a sturdy black man.

"You see? Very stable."

"How long do they dream for?" Cobb's voice sounded so much steadier than he felt.

"Three, four hours, each day."

"In dream time?"

'With this compound, something like forty hours. Each and every day," the chemist clarified.

"Why do they do it?" Saito was confused. He didn't know. Didn't understand what dream sharing could _do_ to you, not like Cobb did, no…

"Tell him, Mr Cobb."

Cobb raised his eyes to the chemist. He had a hint of- a hint of amusement in his eye. Just for a second. Then it was gone.

"After a while- it becomes the only way you can dream," Cobb said, flatly, without any emotion in his  voice.

"Do you still dream, Mr Cobb?" Yusuf asked softly.

Cobb said nothing.

"They come here every day to sleep?" Eames said, a note of incredulity entering his voice. Of course Eames didn’t understand it. Eames was imaginative, sure, but he wasn't a _creator._ Didn't understand the lure of such things. In that sense, he was just like Arthur. Eames dreamt for the deception, the rush of it all. Arthur dreamt for the organisation, like the choreographer of a dance. And Cobb- Cobb stopped that sentence in its tracks. He dreamt to get home to his family, because that was his job, and Saito could fix it for him. Nothing else.

He hadn't noticed the old man walking closer, until he could feel his breath on his back.

"No," the man said, answering Eames's question but speaking to Cobb, "They come to be woken up. The dream has become their reality."

Silence. Broken only by the soft whirring of machines.

Like a ticking bomb. Like an old man wheezing his last few breaths.

The man chuckled in his broken voice, long wasted from years of use. "Who are you to say otherwise, son?"

Cobb was hard-faced as he slung his jacket off. "Let's see what you can do."

 

 

Connected by tubes to a black box with a button.

A red button. To end the world. Or begin it.

Eyes closed. Breathe in. Focus. Don't think of her. Focus. Something neutral.

Devoid of emotion.

_Her brown eyes holding his, brimming with tears of pure, sheer, terror. But she trusts him. Trusts him enough to do this, to put her life on the line._

Focus.

Something. A city. Picture it. Picture the buildings rising from the ground against the backdrop of the impossibly blue sky.

_Rattling. Shaking. The sensation tearing into his heart, his core. The rocks shiver across the cold, heartless metal. The bolt moves but will not break._

A city. Not that one. Paris. Paris. With the gardens and the boulevards and…

_He sees her as he saw her all those ages ago, lying down on her side, but this time she is fearful. Her lashes are darkened with the tears she cannot hold back._

_"You know how to find me," she says to him, cupping his face with her delicate, delicate hands._

Focus. Don't think of her. Focus.

_She stares into his eyes as they await the inevitable, as she trusts him and trusts him and trusts him._

Focus. Don’t...

_The shaking is now a roaring, and it encompasses him until he can hear nothing but  the sound of it, can see nothing but her face._

_"You know what you have to do," his beautiful, dead wife says to him._

_Dead._

Dead.

 

Cobb woke panting, sweating, sitting upright in bed.

Just a dream. That was all. It was just a dream.

"Sharp, no?" Yusuf asked, but he wasn't listening, he wasn't listening, he wasn't listening.  Cobb reached blindly for the tubes on his wrist, ripping them out of his hand brutally and not even feeling the scream of protest from his veins. Ignoring everyone and everything behind him, he all but sprinted to the bathroom.

Taps. Water. He splashed it blindly on his face, not really caring that it ran down his shirt and made him look anything but professional. It didn't matter. He was awake. He was awake, so why couldn't he clear his mind?

  _White curtains billowed away from the window that opened onto the black night…_

No. No. The window opened onto the wall. The brick wall of the Kenyan backstreets, he'd been annoyed about them earlier, hadn't he, remember?

_The perfect lips smiling, slightly, as the wind runs its fingers through her hair…_

No. It wasn't real. He was awake. Cobb was awake, this wasn't a dream.

Shaking fingers fumbled for the totem in his pocket, and he tried to spin the top but it slipped on the slick surface of the wet bench.  Cobb bent down to get it when he heard a voice at the door.

"Are you alright, Mr Cobb?" Saito's voice was uncharacteristically concerned, and Cobb could see that it was genuine. He could see slight lines in the businessman's face like they were chiselled finely in.

'Yeah," Cobb replied automatically, distractedly. "Yeah. I'm just fine."

He was half bent over like a withering man, breathing like an asthmatic, face wet and eyes wild. A blind man could see his distress.

Saito raised an eyebrow, but didn't push the matter further. Cobb picked up the top, shoving it back in his pocket and grabbing a paper towel to wipe his face.

He left the room with all the heat of the man's gaze on his back.

 

They were on a roof.

Eames wasn't quite sure what roof, or why they couldn't just have held the meeting in the perfectly respectable lounge downstairs. Their employer- Saito, Cobb had said- was quite obviously well connected- he seemed to have access to pretty much everything. Including this-this roof.

Eames couldn't well complain that it was a _bad_ roof, but it had room for improvement. The view, for instance. There were buildings- all in various stages of degradation, too- crammed up against each other as far as the eye could see. And here they were- Cobb, Saito and himself- sitting on wooden chairs that Eames had wasted no time getting comfortable in, crowded around a table adorned with a checked table cloth.

Like someone had maybe thought of starting an Italian restaurant up here, and then changed their mind after putting one table down.

Eames couldn't really blame them.

"Robert Fischer," Saito said simply as he handed a file to the two extractors. "Heir to the Fischer-Morrow energy conglomerate."

To be frank, Eames hadn't heard of them- or at least, the name hadn't stuck. Didn't really scan, to be honest.

Cobb glanced over the contents. "What's your problem with this Mr Fischer?"

"That's not your concern."

Oh, joy of joys. Eames just loved these kind of employers. The ones who always wanted to be so candid and keep their motives secret. The ones who, really, didn’t have a clue.

Maybe that wasn't quite accurate. But, like it or not, extractors needed to know the motive. Period.

But Eames didn’t have to worry about that. It was kind of fun letting Cobb do all the dirty work.

Cobb leant back with a sigh, stretching a hand up to scratch his head. A habit he had- when he was frustrated or angry, or just had had too much to deal with that day. Eames noticed these little  quirks about people like it was second nature. It was one of the reasons he was so good at forging.

"Mr Saito," Cobb began wearily, "This isn't your typical corporate espionage."

Well.It was nice to know they had someone smart leading the team.

"You ask me for inception- I do hope you understand the gravity of that request. The seed that we plant in this man's mind will grow into an idea- this idea will _define_ him. It may come to change- well. It may come to change everything about him."

Saito tilted his head to the side. "We are the last company standing between them and total energy dominance.  We can no longer compete. Soon they'll control the energy supplies of the _world_. In effect, they become a new super power. " Saito slapped his hand on the table to drive his point home. "The world needs Robert Fischer to change his mind."

"And that's where we come in." Eames said. Maybe not the best words after that passionate speech, but they weren't here to chat.  "How is Robert Fischer's relationship with his father?"

"Rumour is the relationship is quite complicated."

"We can't work based solely on rumour, can we?" Cobb. Cynical as always. But Eames knew that rumours were essential to a job, the building blocks, in effect, for it. All gossip, no matter what Cobb might think, had a root firmly planted in the truth.

"Can you get me access to this man here?" Eames interrupted, holding up a photograph depicting a stern looking man in a business suit who seemed somewhere in his 60s. Eames checked the file for his name. "Browning. Fisher Senior's right hand man, Fisher junior's godfather."

"It should be possible," Saito said. "If you can get the right references."

That brought a smile to Eames's lips. "References are somewhat of a speciality for me, Mr Saito."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn Cobb had grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter and I won't be writing more...anyway if you made it this far thanks? hope you liked it :)


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